You've Just Been Told
to move to
Wolfe Island:
a rounded island in a wide
river at the edge of a wide, dark lake.
You've just been told
to move to Wolfe Island. What
will you find there?
Wolves?
Traps for wolves?
You've
been told to move to Wolfe Island.
What can you take along when you go?
All the kitchenware.
All the hammers and saws.
This book and that book.
Whatever your choice was.
You'll take a free ferry
to Wolfe Island. The car
has its brakes set and won't roll.
The ferry clanked into the dock
of the island.
What do you find there?
A small town. A red stop sign.
Islands of squared-off fields
in a pond of trees.
Little-box houses in square
yards. Clouds spread over the trees,
as flat as icing. Fences,
green wheat. A second shore.
A road with a name like
Button Edge Road?
Can't we go back and take a look?
Later. Don't worry.
Now we live here.
Imagine
Once I spoke a foreign language
in a dream—like skating, like swimming in air.
Like flying:
I was able to reach
the doctor, was able to save
the loved one, able to make myself
understood. The looks askance,
the dumb stares,
were nods and smiles:
agreement.
A white-coat bureaucrat turned
obliging, allowed me into intensive care
to be with the loved one, who was dying.
I spoke the most foreign language.
I loved, I hoped,
I dreamed
that I said the needful thing.
Bien morir, or There, there.
Or Here. I could say everything.
No, I could speak
no foreign language.
I was not able.
Not having done a thing, except in a dream.
I was not there.
A Chance Small Fruit
In the taste
of this sour apple
is the bee
making pictures
of honey. First
there's a branch
toward the middle of a
not-tall tree. Then a bud
and a not-pink, not-
white flower—a cup
for itself, the bee.
Then a hard green
apple-thumb is round
and redder. Success!
But still green.
I come eat it. I miss
my place on the tree.
I miss the sun
on my hand.
I miss the tree.
Sign Language
Where the great hands
spell out the A
to Z and a
scatter clearly
means scatter, a
pinkie held to
the heart then
an eye means
I see, the grammar
of which doesn't
matter: a non-
restrictive
relation's
conveyed by a
gesture; the face
is the only
true place for
expressions of
love, indecision,
rapture; two hands
brushing the
air past the ears
mean "You lost me,"
were over my head,
while love still
appears on the
heart (two crossed hands),
not in the head,
and practice
is one hand a plane
planing the back
of the other—
We do so nearly
believe we'll have
said what we needed
to say, with our
long training.
© 2000 by Elizabeth Macklin. All rights reserved. Audio recording by Jonathan Blunk 2001.
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