The Poetry of Joan Houlihan, Part 2

Nothing So Stoic As a Child Done Early

Nettled over and backed against a marsh
of kept pools, you can see it from the train

whitened by evening and one light inside,
house to which you will come back.

You stood it for years. Filigree of gnat
and bad air, the waking absence of self.

In the cripple-fingered light, a few bees
squeezed between your screen

as you wound around each hand an urgent
maternal bandage. An accident.

You’re stuttering—Now
can your throat open to milk?

As Winter Will

Mown, or lifted to the loft, our summer hay,
As on the lawn you were somber and said your lines:
Give the man a touch.
In need, your face looked upward,
Broke to mawkish, and a melancholy
Took your throat, the hope of a new alphabet,

Away. As winter will, it built spun-sugar
Crannies, and we crept, and prayed, took every care
Until your hair was topped with silver, my cheeks
So cold from your wise breath. I broke the frozen roses
And this was as close as we could get, white and pink, and this
Was how we lived: in a drift of memory, a tilt toward
Youth. As if we could. As if now
Were not enough, in its clang, in its hand-
Held bell, in its taste of nickel, sharp.
In this fashion, our years flowed
And we made our bed with mortality, left the gates
Open, the mind vacant, intentionally.

I have given up everything. Nothing is
Left for you to pierce, examine; my youth
Is a small crust. Don’t touch.
It keeps better here, in my drawer, than outdoors
Where the air might turn it wrong. Now let’s talk
As we hear the rake drag small debris, the crack of twigs;
The ocean water as it drips from empty nets,
The murmur at an accident as the crowd
Turns away from a gone situation; a sound
That’s only us, that we put up with, like a crying
In the leaves at night, that rises once, then drops.

Rationing, 1945

What stays massed in the mind
are instructions: render the fat
reuse the tea; save, sure of the reason.

More than fear's nick, this was dread:
hardened, and solid as lard. Grudges
were holstered or held

to the light, the milkweed of them dispelled.
The sponge was wrung for its last.
We went together, washed and chagrined

to wait for the cans, contents unknown.
Intent and covetous, rent with twitches,
we opened them, lit by hunger.

Complaints disappeared in our mouths.
We went together at midday, at dusk,
to seize the fuel, to seize the flour—

as some mother went weeping
against the wall—

to seize the milk which was ours.

          First published in Del Sol Review

As to the Origin

One is gone who trailed daylight, was favored
by fields, took the hot breath and gab
of August, morning and its mock owls.
Time steepens.

As to the origin, and pith, of loss:
I have no talk, just brace for the vertebra
askew, taped clavicle, hip, pinned.
Whatever helps.

Made of distances now, I only want less
and move with the stagger of something
dying down the day’s green halls.
Wanting what’s left.


          First published in Fine Madness

Click on the right arrow below and go to next page

---