Read Online Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marge Piercy
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build a new loving out of our rubble
we will fall into a bamboo-staked trap on a lush trail.
You will secrete love out of old semen and gum and dreams.
What we do not remake
plays nostalgic songs on the jukebox of our guts,
and leads us into the old comfortable temptation.
6.
You lay in bed depressed, passive as butter.
I brought you a rose I had grown. You said
the rose was me, dark red and perfumed and three-quarters open,
soft as sometimes with embarrassment you praise my skin.
You talked of fucking the rose. Then you grew awkward;
we would never be free of roles, dominance and submission,
we slam through the maze of that pinball machine forever.
I say the rose is a place where we make love.
I am a body beautiful only when fitted with yours.
Otherwise, it walks, it lifts packages, it spades.
It is functional or sick, tired or sturdy. It serves.
Together we are the rose, full, red as the inside
of the womb and head of the penis,
blossoming as we encircle, we make that symmetrical fragrant emblem,
then separate into discrete workday selves.
The morning mail is true. Tomorrow’s picketline is true.
And the rose, the rose of our loving
crimson and sonorous as a cellist
bowing on the curve of our spines, is true.
7.
We will be equal, we say, new man and new woman.
But what man am I equal to before the law of court or custom?
The state owns my womb and hangs a man’s name on me
like the tags hung on dogs, my name is, property of.
The language betrays us and rots in the mouth
with its aftertaste of monastic sewers on the palate.
Even the pronouns tear my tongue with their metal plates.
You could strangle me: my hands
can’t even encircle your neck.
Because I open my mouth wide and stand up roaring
I am the outlawed enemy of men.
A party means what a bullfight does to the bull.
The street is a gauntlet.
I open my mail with tongs.
All the images of strength in you, fathers and prophets and heroes,
pull against me, till what feels right to you
wrongs me, and there is no rest from struggle.
We are equal if we make ourselves so, every day, every night
constantly renewing what the street destroys.
We are equal only if you open too on your heavy hinges
and let your love come freely, freely, where it will never be safe,
where you can never possess.
8.
When we mesh badly, with scraping and squeaking,
remember that every son had a mother
whose beloved son he was,
and every woman had a mother
whose beloved son she wasn’t.
What feels natural and easy is soft murder
of each other and that mutant future
striving to break into bloom
bloody and red as the real rose.
Periodic, earthy, of a violent tenderness
it is the nature of this joining
to remain partial and episodic
yet feel total: a mountain that opens like a door
and then closes
like a mountain.
The spring offensive of the snail
Living someplace else is wrong
in Jerusalem the golden
floating over New England smog,
above paper company forests,
deserted brick textile mills
square brooders on the rotten rivers,
developer-chewed mountains.
Living out of time is wrong.
The future drained us thin as paper.
We were tools scraping.
After the revolution
we would be good, love one another
and bake fruitcakes.
In the meantime eat your ulcer.
Living upside down is wrong,
roots in the air
mouths filled with sand.
Only what might be sang.
I cannot live crackling
with electric rage always.
The journey is too long
to run, cursing those
who can’t keep up.
Give me your hand.
Talk quietly to everyone you meet.
It is going on.
We are moving again
with our houses on our backs.
This time we have to remember
to sing and make soup.
Pack the
Kapital
and the vitamin E,
the basil plant for the sill,
Apache tears you
picked up in the desert.
But remember to bury
all old quarrels
behind the garage for compost.
Forgive who insulted you.
Forgive yourself for being wrong.
You will do it again
for nothing
we will fall into a bamboo-staked trap on a lush trail.
You will secrete love out of old semen and gum and dreams.
What we do not remake
plays nostalgic songs on the jukebox of our guts,
and leads us into the old comfortable temptation.
6.
You lay in bed depressed, passive as butter.
I brought you a rose I had grown. You said
the rose was me, dark red and perfumed and three-quarters open,
soft as sometimes with embarrassment you praise my skin.
You talked of fucking the rose. Then you grew awkward;
we would never be free of roles, dominance and submission,
we slam through the maze of that pinball machine forever.
I say the rose is a place where we make love.
I am a body beautiful only when fitted with yours.
Otherwise, it walks, it lifts packages, it spades.
It is functional or sick, tired or sturdy. It serves.
Together we are the rose, full, red as the inside
of the womb and head of the penis,
blossoming as we encircle, we make that symmetrical fragrant emblem,
then separate into discrete workday selves.
The morning mail is true. Tomorrow’s picketline is true.
And the rose, the rose of our loving
crimson and sonorous as a cellist
bowing on the curve of our spines, is true.
7.
We will be equal, we say, new man and new woman.
But what man am I equal to before the law of court or custom?
The state owns my womb and hangs a man’s name on me
like the tags hung on dogs, my name is, property of.
The language betrays us and rots in the mouth
with its aftertaste of monastic sewers on the palate.
Even the pronouns tear my tongue with their metal plates.
You could strangle me: my hands
can’t even encircle your neck.
Because I open my mouth wide and stand up roaring
I am the outlawed enemy of men.
A party means what a bullfight does to the bull.
The street is a gauntlet.
I open my mail with tongs.
All the images of strength in you, fathers and prophets and heroes,
pull against me, till what feels right to you
wrongs me, and there is no rest from struggle.
We are equal if we make ourselves so, every day, every night
constantly renewing what the street destroys.
We are equal only if you open too on your heavy hinges
and let your love come freely, freely, where it will never be safe,
where you can never possess.
8.
When we mesh badly, with scraping and squeaking,
remember that every son had a mother
whose beloved son he was,
and every woman had a mother
whose beloved son she wasn’t.
What feels natural and easy is soft murder
of each other and that mutant future
striving to break into bloom
bloody and red as the real rose.
Periodic, earthy, of a violent tenderness
it is the nature of this joining
to remain partial and episodic
yet feel total: a mountain that opens like a door
and then closes
like a mountain.
The spring offensive of the snail
Living someplace else is wrong
in Jerusalem the golden
floating over New England smog,
above paper company forests,
deserted brick textile mills
square brooders on the rotten rivers,
developer-chewed mountains.
Living out of time is wrong.
The future drained us thin as paper.
We were tools scraping.
After the revolution
we would be good, love one another
and bake fruitcakes.
In the meantime eat your ulcer.
Living upside down is wrong,
roots in the air
mouths filled with sand.
Only what might be sang.
I cannot live crackling
with electric rage always.
The journey is too long
to run, cursing those
who can’t keep up.
Give me your hand.
Talk quietly to everyone you meet.
It is going on.
We are moving again
with our houses on our backs.
This time we have to remember
to sing and make soup.
Pack the
Kapital
and the vitamin E,
the basil plant for the sill,
Apache tears you
picked up in the desert.
But remember to bury
all old quarrels
behind the garage for compost.
Forgive who insulted you.
Forgive yourself for being wrong.
You will do it again
for nothing
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