Susan Gevirtz
from The Wind in her Daughtership’s Majesty : a maske, antemasque
The wind is my mascot
I shall not want
But even the wind
Is owned by names
And struggles against its hand
§
What’s in a girl sugar eyes
yes she could might or would
With my heavy watch on I
take my Father’s pulse
turn to deflect
the protagonist’s punch
§
IV.
I felt sorry for them. A mix of pity and compassion. A fantasy of service. As a teenage girl I befriended old men in the park. I thought they needed cheering up. I thought I had a unique capacity to do that. I believed I could be exempt from danger and sleeze. I believed I had a way through the cracks of the given problem. I learned that I was gifted for old men and many older women
wind wind wind
The rain comes sparkling down
This little girl says she’ll die
I went to bed. Or rather wouldn’t get up. Stayed under the covers at the foot of the bed. Outside bright sun cheer and oaks bore down through the big windows. I turned my back. Curled toward the wall. Something had to be done to show what had happened and it chose me as its signage
What had happened was unclear. I tried to be helpful. When she was gone I carefully unwrapped the things in one of the moving boxes. Tenderly placed the soft bloody swaths in her sock drawer where they probably belonged. But received no thanks for this
What is a girl
blood and cotton and jasmine hand lotion
keep moisture spreading hydration herding
Their childhoods all led breast-ward
An obstruction to seeing the beloved ground and finding things that fall at your feet—or so I thought of my breasted future
thus was happy that mine were late in bloom
We flung and ground and rubbed them together and against each other’s
Some like tongue tips some like sea anemones some like the sea urchins carved from their shells right after she dove for them for me
These beasts, crustacean swells, harbingers of suitors and pretime when we swam
on each other
This little girl said, “Give me a pool and I’ll cross under water”
That one said, “Give me an ocean and I’ll scale it”
Under any wave I’ll find the quiet spot, lie still face down calmly and let all
of your turbulence pass over unattended
Then the initiations came to pass: something pushed me hard under water, a rough hand over my chest wouldn’t let me up At camp on a hike the counselor put his arm over my shoulder and then further down. A coma of confusions that will never fully lift
But now I have noticed
that you speak to me like audience
You have forgotten my kinship with the off shore
fins and mistaken me for the custodian of time-keeping you may
not realize that the watch and the shore are allies
Allied in my fitness
oh the capacity for breath holding
sing its high praises though we know
it can cut both ways
in not questioning the sequence from Barbies
to girl on girl discovered
forbidden
the verboten
flickers at the edge of sight
moth to florescent night algae
Did I or did I not see the grunion run? Did I or didn’t I scare away the boys the minute I opened my mouth? This the girls of the many names also wonder. Some more than others
On the other hand the girls and women came unasked and unafraid, of all ages, curly and straight, in all sizes and strides.
You need to figure out the best angle. Head shot from above. Sideways camouflage. A little is too much. A lot not enough
§
V.
First Fall
A plan. A pill. A chicken in hand. A dressing room piled with the discarded
The slap down. The slip up—but why?
An eight-year-old has already plotted and executed one runaway at five years old. And plots the next in front of the TV on which Kennedy was just shot interrupting Lucille Ball
The rain comes sparkling down
This little girl says she’ll die
For want of a lover with a rolling eye.
If you were my daughter and your daughter’s mother
I’d wrap you in a flame blanket and roll you to an orchard
Where sentries would feed you oranges and you’d never have to learn
That as public property pregnancy is not yours
Flaunt it and fuck it and take your hand off it
When it suits you to agree, okay, or crack your whip and
away he’ll go
And if she harms you in the name of misguided fairness
Bring the borderline a gift and turn your back on her
Never think of the reason for it, lock up and hunker down
In your own savings of miles
Enfeebled in the outerlands
Outsider outside the province of promise
§
VI.
Placeholders for futures
You will live among us
Third guess turntablist
Keep steering back
We do lose our ways
Some tunes taunt return
Some return us to us
Literally your neighbors
Don’t know you
Yet you yearn for recognition
In disguise as a name
but unpronouncable
Have we been here before
almond eyes
You are not in this room
I am in age days else you where distance dictates
joy of muscle stretch
§
They will teach us wind prediction
Off to on shore morning breezes
From west to low the mountain caper thistles
Rhythm helps us hike the gorge but drop it
at sight of sea
So and so will never come never go
The wind wind shrill and smart
dances with a broom
Circle and pick
a girl for the center
She must choose a name
Sing, sing
What is a ring game
Sing the middle rots the middle swirls
I saw the promise the delight
the adjustment behind your eyes
I saw the arrangement of compromise
I saw you counting four five six how
did they do it before
resounding chorus together we turn
behind they pass us
fist over fist
What I want to say is one thing do another
And wish for you yet a third
Is there an outside or only refrain
beaten up echo
disclaimer to excavate
§
Placeholders For Futures
Do we dream of new captions or underwrite other lyrics
Do we wish for a safe house
Do we excise the lines with a plane ticket
Please do tell us what to do
Here start over
Tell me what you are sleeping under
Quilt of weight and promise
Come with the bees and talk in a circle
Pagan cast or pretend another
I’d like to give
the ark promise
but we have labored in the trenches
And wish to save you
so much grovel
You may win a key
to the golden city
And hope when you
arrive the gold is still sun
Keep steering back
We do lose our way
disabused of rest
brings ambush
If something is
broken sing to it
of a hearth or a hunt or a menu unrent
No, there’s a lot I
don’t know in your nomenclature
But still to narrow
the width between generations
the said and the felt
is an isthmus
of belief
the boat moves toward
§
A girl is singing into the camera
A camera is putting hands in her hair
I saw you toss the kites on high blow
Birds about the sky
Beast of field and tree
Flowers in the summer fires in the fall
I would deteach
these poles from tendons tendencies
Enfeebled in the outerlands
Outsider outside the province of promise
The wind or a car coming
A car coming or water rushing
So Flora, bride of the west wind
Is it really you who controls all flowers
beyond doer and done
outside the dyad is not
give over not in
§
Rest nervous system shed
plaque heart with
dusk and the queen of wands rise
over the hill
the desire to intervene
like blood on her hands
Once again you
And the point are complete strangers
And not enough of too much has been said
All: when the wind blows from the south, that which no canvas sails could withstand,
undress and conceive by the wind, give birth to girls
§
This poem first appeared in Jacket.