This Bell Like a Bee Striking
Exactly, thought. Here she is having a mind.
A moon ghastly light on a person. To suffer
emotion, throat stiff, child grown. Larger.
A whole. Summoned so one can have a look.
Summoned to husband what has happened.
The light challenged the powers
of feeling: frightening, exhilarating, surprise,
shame. It was over. Plaster and litter alone.
Five acts that had been
over and over. A strange power of speaking.
Some concern for the half-past. Ring after ring
like something coming. It is a thought,
this bell like a bee striking.
The future lies in a patter like wood drummed.
A sensual traffic: what, where, and why.
Three emotions. Shutters and avenues.
The red burning. A lizard's color in her eyes.
evening wearing the fringes in the windows.
The light wavering in the darkness streets.
Atoms turned. Thinking like the pulse -
punctually, noiselessly silk-stockinged.
Ridiculous. Her mother grown big.
She, like most mothers, a swept shuffle
of traffic and dress and nothing
except the flutter of absolution.
Such are things merged. The cupboard outline
becomes soft. A table. Cigarette smoke.
A baby bright pink. Daring with being.
That dog. Lots of coldness. Yet, some power
to preside in her head, with her shoulders,
through dinner, A sort of maternal politics,
Her dress disappearing. Sweeping off for bed
with headaches. Still, the sun. The squirrels.
Pebbles to the pebble collection. She blinks
at the crack of a twig behind the bedroom walls.
(58/59)
- Mary Jo Bang
from Mother: Women's Studies Quarterly. Vol 37, # 3/4, Fall/Winter 2009.
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