The Poetry I Write When The World Collapses

 

 

The Disaster Cover

 

This is my blanket

My daughter called it a blankie when she was a baby

Now I feel babyish and call it the same

 

You can get underneath my blankie, like so— 

 

Or I can embrace you with it—

 

You’ll feel warmer

You’ll feel babyish

You’ll fall on top of me like an exhausted lover, under my cover, and

 I’ll feel the weight of your world crumble  on top of me.

 

We’ll both feel safer, in a blanket

Even though nothing has changed

Your side will be by mine and and that’s the final place I want it

 

This side of my blanket 

is the soft part, the  part you hold against your cheek when all the other soft parts get

blown to bits

 

And this side of the blanket 

is the fuzzy part— 

the side that stays fuzzy even when the picture elsewhere gets all too clear

 

Here’s the dark part of my blanket

The place where I wanted to rest my eyes forever—

But my memories leaked in like sunlight, 

And my eyes grew so red  they’ll never sleep the same again

 

I wish I could make the bad smell go away with my blanket

The smell of gypsum and flesh and ashy shock

 I could wipe it  off the face of the earth, I could wipe myself off the earth, 

 I could tell you why all the loose ends ended up that way, 

If I  had one more chance, one more yarn, to make it right this time

 

 I have a fantasy about the whole world

 It’s made out of whole cloth

 I guess there’s no excuse for it

 

I have a love

For a big city that took me in its arms and 

Covered me 

With blossoms and snowflakes and soot as thick as grease

 

I  have to stop talking about you as if you’re dead

 

I know you’re only bleeding, and you’d welcome

my dry hand

I ‘m covering you in white linen 

When you’re ready to defy me in red silk

 

I  tell you I’m ready to take you in tatters

And you tell me to stick a needle in my mouth if that’s the way I’m going to act

 

Okay, I’ll shut up

 

Instead of blessing you and damning you,

 I’ll just cover you

The way I’d like to be covered

So close, so bound together, so sooty and greasy

That nothing will ever tear us apart

 

I wrote this poem on Sept 24, 2001, after the bombing in NYC. When I wrote it, I was also thinking about when I was pregnant in 1989 in San Francisco when everything fell into the sea and shattered... the Loma Prieta earthquake. I dug out this poem today thinking about my friends in Japan, wishing I could imagine a "blanket" big enough for this.

 

 

Image Credit: James White made this poster, I found it at boingboing.