Danielle Blau
Nth Sunday in Ordinary Time
For a thousand years
we’ve lived here on this hissing rock.
Once I saw ankles
lift from the shallows.
The Ambassador-Dad told me
as we watched him wade
away. Bivalves, we gurgle,
we open and close.
When I wished
for a white sheet to drape us
when we’re dead so it can rise
and fall in the breeze
from the fan, Ma
slapped me on the cheek.
When we’re gone, the hole left
will be wider than life itself-she said.
Now, instead, I pray no
righteous match
our sputtered tail to
strike, meaning
the opposite of that;
it’s an art we all learn.
When we leave there won’t
be breeze and I won’t have to miss
the whirr of the fan.
It is sad being
born to a punctured sphere
but it’s something, to hear the stars
slowly deflate at night. |
