Love Letter Found in a Lumberyard
So I try to forget that even bees wage wars,
that a dolphin may kill her own calves,
that a bull too will charge an innocent crowd,
that the Earth’s health has been compromised
and it’s almost impossible to bring her fever down.
So I try to forget the terror of living
and as I stand barefoot in the doorway,
a blue teacup warming my hands,
I dictate a letter for you to the rain.
Each letter hits the windowpanes
of the house where you live.
Can you hear it?
Maybe one day I will be a fossil
in the stone of your heart.
Or I will turn into a willow tree
and I will gift you oxygen.
Maybe one day you will sit in my shade
below mourning doves sheltered in a nest
and read a paper with happier news
than what we hear today.
Or I will block out the sun from your yard
and you will take an axe and cut me down.
Canter Toward Home
When you and your sons arrive
at a forest, trees wrap their arms
around you, like beloved aunts
whom you haven’t seen in ages,
and they feed you mulberries.
Three horses wait for you by the creek
illuminated by lightning bugs and the Moon.
You mount them and let yourself be guided.
You are holding on, holding onto them
as you ride among maples, beavers, and owls.
The horses teach you not to trudge but to canter
along life’s dirt roads and roadways.
You practice breathing in hope
as you lope through a forest,
once ravaged by an ice storm.
Finally, you arrive at the other side,
a secret meadow owned by horses,
where you graze on stars
and you dye
the sorrow
green.
Exterior Renovations
The children stare into a broken heart
with a kaleidoscope
and fix it with tweezers and a tiny mallet.
They loosen blocked arteries
with a nursery rhyme and a wrench.
They draw bees on a piece of paper
and blow hard enough to bring them to life.
They hide giraffes and tigers
behind the sandbox in the backyard
to save them from poachers.
Can you repair everything? I ask them.
Everything!
Even the world?
They nod.
No extra fees,
No weekend charges.
You have all the tools?
Yes, we do.
They stuff their backpacks with a few blocks,
a rubber eraser, and a toy drill.
Let’s go then, I say
as I turn a rug into a raft
and take off
with the children
and a jar of honey
for the journey
to repair
the mangled earth.
________________
Agnieszka Tworek was born in Lublin, Poland, and arrived in the United States when she was eighteen. Her poems have been published in Ploughshares, The Sun, The Best American Poetry 2018, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. She lives on Staten Island.
Comments