Poetry: 2002 #1
It’s Poetry Month and anything goes! Today the archaeological dig that is spring cleaning unearthed some poetry from 2002. Ah, the early aughts! The collection includes more pseudo-sonnets along with other song-nets that I wove back in the wayback. In the spirit of all things metrical, I decided to bring out these artifacts, dust them off for spring and place them ever so gently in this digital display case.
Brace yourselves for the angstiness, friends! It’s going to be a bumpy Poetry Month!
Can’t. . . Won’t
i.
Tell me you don’t love me — say it!
You can’t because it isn’t true,
any more than you can tell me that you do.
That would be betrayal. You have weighed it
carefully, the price of saying each.
So you opt for silence or you reach
to find your way around it with “if-thens,”
“I can’t and won’t,” and grammar that abates
finality with wistful might-have-beens.
“If it weren’t for” and “you know. . . .”
We’re trapped in your subjunctive. It’s too late.
A liar would have said it long ago,
but you’re the honest man who sealed my fate.
You’ve said “I love you” every way but straight.
ii.
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. – Mathew 5:28
Who taught you thought and word
were synonyms of deed?
What unnatural law constrained you?
The too-familiar notion makes me fear
we have much more in common.
Be careful, little pen, what you write. . .
Or perhaps it was your father,
saying, “Son, never strike a woman,”
and as a boy you reasoned a priori.
Or is it simply Love,
pressing a jealous palm against the lips
of her rival affection,
whispering honeyed threats,
“One of us must die. . . .”
Valiant, you try to save them both:
You can’t say “I do,” as it’s been done.
But you won’t say “I don’t” to either one.
iii.
I live and move between your lines,
somewhere outside of duty or volition,
in the bittersweet apodosis of your condition.
The full story of how these poems came to be written is revealed in my book, The Shadowdancer: Field Notes of a Psychic Naturalist.
Photo by Engin Akyurt
CAMILLA WELLS PAYNTER 