MORTAL
MORTALITY Dug up a bunch of poems I wrote forty years ago, poems written before I found the courage to write words that went all the way across the page. But beginning to face mortality.
MORTAL
Absence is as palpable as presence
and mortality has its own built-in sweetness
don’t you think? Take me, for instance
strewn across the bed this morning, alone,
the day stretching ahead like a geography
lesson for which I am completely unprepared,
staring at the freshly patched ceiling
wondering how I ever got this far knowing
what I know and still alive! Mercy!!
And I touch the curve of my ribcage
thinking Why I’m as mortal as the next one and begin to feel
quite tender toward myself, and vow to attend
to my own needs while the moon continues to tug
at my blood and the tides continue to rise and fall
inside me and I rise and go out and think
Long live the Broadway Local!
on a rainy day at rush hour as sidle my way in
between the biggest men and inhale whatever it is
they’ve got this morning—hair oil, armpit, breath sweet
or sour, and nobody stares at me but if they do
I’ll be damned if I stop breathing
breathing it all the way in
Beginning to feel quite tender towards oneself is such a profoundly intimate thought.
Quite spectacular to find old poems, Abigail. And profound…