Like Lazarus by Sherman Conrad
May. 12th, 2022 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In no way does he mean to hurt you.
But neither are the glassy walls of this house
Any barrier or hiding. And he approaches.
You are here in your living-place (seeming More than ever now like a shallow stage)
At the table of graven wood, four chairs appointed,
The central dish—fruits, rust-veined, mottled marble—
Diffusing upward a conglomerate light, a life’s spectrum.
Behind you the two women stand, giver, taker,
Dark and blonde, your needed ministers of homing.
But now, you cannot bring their smiling near.
Alone you must meet his face, inlooking, neutral,
A wound waiting to be received. Then, you know—
And how well! denatured eyes, the mouth which has had nothing,
Stare of arctic summer loneliness—looking through, you know.
He is loss
years, years, rainwaters streaming down a wall
Houses laid open, empty of you as turned-out skins
And beaches that could not hold, hold back, seas tugging
And it all was washed away.
Scream in your terror
If you will. He cannot hear you, knows no agony.
What the women’s hands desired evades you. And he is entering.
In you now a wish is rising, like an issue of blood,
Is carrying you the small space toward some fullest touch—
Mouth to mouth transpiring breath—which must be
In no way at all like a kiss.
But neither are the glassy walls of this house
Any barrier or hiding. And he approaches.
You are here in your living-place (seeming More than ever now like a shallow stage)
At the table of graven wood, four chairs appointed,
The central dish—fruits, rust-veined, mottled marble—
Diffusing upward a conglomerate light, a life’s spectrum.
Behind you the two women stand, giver, taker,
Dark and blonde, your needed ministers of homing.
But now, you cannot bring their smiling near.
Alone you must meet his face, inlooking, neutral,
A wound waiting to be received. Then, you know—
And how well! denatured eyes, the mouth which has had nothing,
Stare of arctic summer loneliness—looking through, you know.
He is loss
years, years, rainwaters streaming down a wall
Houses laid open, empty of you as turned-out skins
And beaches that could not hold, hold back, seas tugging
And it all was washed away.
Scream in your terror
If you will. He cannot hear you, knows no agony.
What the women’s hands desired evades you. And he is entering.
In you now a wish is rising, like an issue of blood,
Is carrying you the small space toward some fullest touch—
Mouth to mouth transpiring breath—which must be
In no way at all like a kiss.