Words of Evening by Mary Ann Honaker

 

Image | Owens 张

WORDS OF EVENING

 

I have this ancient cherry tree to give, 

its branches brittle.  I've lost most of me. 

 

I look for myself under leaves, and a 

holy softness enters me, as in church.

 

The earthworms wriggle deeper.  I have made 

a self out of burnt bones entirely. 

 

*

 

In my yard, the grace of a thick willow of 

unknown years.  The grace of tears spilling salt

 

down my cheeks, the grace of salted hair. Let 

the mourners come with their questions. In the 

 

forest, far down the winding path, where walls 

of shale chip away slowly, where the hiss

 

of pebbles gives way to cliff-fall, and 

the cave where the stoners sit and smoke-- 

 

there may be answers.  I was alive when

 

*

 

midnight scarred me, but not awake.  I 

 

carry stones with me.  I won't return 

to who I was, not completely, or to 

 

the boulders stacked on the eastern shore.

I have the grace of unwinding time.  I 

 

spill my contents, wonder and ask 

why that hammer, why that bent nail, and for 

 

how long?  Why the pack of wild dogs, or the 

thick-coated caribou?  I have the grace

 

*

 

of falling often, of bruising little, of 

a new dress I haven't worn.  I'm in a 

 

cage.  I grasp the cold bars.  I am a new 

exhibit: the fading woman, freckle

 

on the face of time.  I am standing on 

sand being swifted away by sea, and my 

 

feet are sinking.  No one has touched my cheek,

cupped it in his palm.  The wild dogs wake, the 

 

yipping and howling unsettle my owls.  They lift

one by one into the slate-black sky of 

 

my interior.  I'm vast within, blue 

the walls of my houses, snow coating and 

 

forgetting them.  Constellations are my 

neurons, face of porcelain, my mother's

 

face.  The ocean caresses the shore, soapy 

with froth, bubbles pop and sizzle on my skin. 

 

*

 

There is always a destination to- 

ward which I'm walking.  I fail to greet 

 

the gatekeepers.  They disassemble me.

I fail to find a cave in which to hide. 

 

If you need directions do not come to me. 

I'm lost in my own landscape, too far in 

 

to dredge thoughts and words out.  In a 

diary they're locked, in a small, besieged room.

 

I'm surfacing in my own ocean, with 

starfish draped over my legs.  There is no 

 

sky, I float staring up at ribs for windows,

a sheet of muscle for clouds.  I never 

 

knew I spent so much time in my mind.  Let 

me out!  I need a path out of me!

 

*

 

Some people find paths in each other, see

trees and rivers, walk a lifetime.  The 

 

lucky swim another's sea, watch dolphins 

in their pods, whales breaching, fish leaping--

 

no nets, no spears.  Years pass looking into

someone, searching for their sky while commas

 

trip me on my path.  Comma, violence. For 

years.  Comma, substance abuse. Comma, the 

 

lack of oceans, of any kind of water.

Comma, no kneeling within, no prayer.

 

*

 

The disciples stood, watched Jesus rising 

until clouds swallowed him.  He floated like 

 

a lost balloon, past the atmosphere, a host 

of angels baffled, mouths open, songs of 

 

frightened awe. It is very old, the paper 

on which this is written, words like lanterns

 

blazing in the face of the reader, in 

the mind.  I have journeyed out of the 

 

holy place, only to find another, inky 

with dark and midnight truths, words of evening.

 

*

 

I've looked into other people, let 

them be the disaster they are.  Like them, 

 

my rivers dry out, and my stormclouds hang

like curse words.  They withhold rain, scuttle in- 

 

to another reel.  The movie in the  

projector skips, throws spots on a spotless sky. 

 

The cockatiel of hope is caged until 

the reel runs out.  Boxes and boxes they 

 

carry, the kind men, but I will vanish, 

not merely move a few houses away.  At 

 

*

 

present, I don't hope to find oceans in the 

neighbors.  At most, I may find a cliff's edge,

 

and I have one of my own.  Thinking of 

how hollow others seem to be is the 

 

apex of vanity.  Their constellations

may dwarf mine in size, complexity.  The 

 

distant past housed both gods and heroes, 

and so may their ribs.  I've abandoned and 

 

forgotten many of my soul's animals.

The jaguar in my neighbor may be lost, too. 

 

We have so many beasts, and are so busy 

with the outer sunlit world, its tasks and 

 

shouted demands.  I am a jewel-bright 

dancer, footwork too soft to hear.  To 

 

center stage I float.  No one will notice.

This is a golden shovel based on Aimee Nezhukumatathil's “Sea Church,” from Oceanic.

© Mary Ann Honaker

Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), and Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023).  Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.

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