I wouldn’t have done much different.
I might have woken her, taken her tarnished
shoulders in my arms, rocked her like a child.
As it was, I bent over her and kissed her
on the temple, a curl of her hair caught
for a moment in the corner of my lips.
This is my mother I thought, her brain
sleeping beneath her skull, her heart
sluggish but still beating, her body
my first house, the dark horse I rode in on.
Letter to My Dead Mother
Dear White Raven, Dear Albino Crow.
Time to apologize for all the times I devised
Excuses to hang up the phone.
Dear Swarm of Summer Sun, Dear Satin Doll.
You were my panic in a dark house, my mistake,
My maybe, my heart drain, my worst curse.
Dear Scientific Fact, Dear Cake Batter Spoon.
I love you. I love you.
I knew after I fell for the third time
I should write you, Dear Mother.
Dear Pulse, Clobber, Partaker, Cobbler.
Dear Crossword, Crick, Coffeepot, Catchall.
You told me when you were 72
You still felt 25 behind your eyes.
Dear Underbelly, Bisection, Scimitar, Doge.
Dear Third Rail. Dear Bandbox. Dear Scapegrace.
How could I know—I want to go home.
Don’t leave me alone—Blank as a stone.
Dear Piano.
You played for no one, your fingers touched the keys
With naked intimacy.
At the science fair we looked in a two-way mirror
And our eyes merged.
Dear Wreck. Dear Symphony.
Dear Omission. Dear Universe.
Dear Moon-in-the-sky like a toy.
Dear Reason for my being.
You were the Emergency Room Angel
In a gown of light, the injured flocked to you.
You could not heal them all. Dear Failure.
No one on earth more hated
Or loved: your warm hands,
Your cold heart.
Dear Mother, I have tried. I think I know now
What you meant when you said, I’m tired.
I have no song to sing to your Death Star.
No wish. Though I kissed your cheek
And sang for you in the kitchen
While you stirred the soup, steam
Licking our faces—crab legs and potatoes—
Acknowledgments
The Ampersand Review: “Ideas of Heaven”
The BAKERY: “Evening”
BOAAT: “Arizona”
Catamaran Magazine: “Heart of Thorns”
Cortland Review: “Changeable Weather”
Gulf Coast: “Ant Farm”
Oxford American: “Chair,” “Error’s Refuge”
The Pedestal Magazine: “Ode to Gray”
Poetry Northwest: “Augusta, Maine, 1951”
Plume: “Lapse”
Southern Humanities Review: “Piano with Children”
Tinhouse: “Before Surgery,” “Death of the Mother”
The Well Review, Ireland: “Urn”
Willow Springs: “Crow”
“Only as the Day Is Long” and “Under Stars,” Academy of American Poets, Poem-A-Day
“Letter to My Dead Mother,” Montreal International Poetry Prize Anthology, Vehicule Press, UK
Thank you first and always to Joe for his unwavering faith and faithful attention, to Jill for lending me her ear and support, to my daughter Tristem for her spirit, to Wilton for his encouragement, to Michelle, Michael and Nancy who see me through, to Rosen for his abiding friendship, and to my mother who made me and gave me music.
Thank you to Michael McGriff for transcribing Awake, and to my students who have inspired me and given me hope for the future of poetry.
Gratitude to VCCA where some of the new poems were written, NC State for sabbatical time, and my colleagues and students at Pacific University.
In memory of my teachers, Steve Kowit and Chana Bloch, and my mentor and friend, Philip Levine.
Notes
“Lapse” is a “Golden Shovel,” a form Terrance Hayes invented in which one takes a line from a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks and uses each word in the line, in order, as the new poem’s end words.
“Heart of Thorns” was written about folk singers Anna and Elizabeth.
“Ode to Gray” is for Sharon Olds.
“Death of the Mother” uses the end rhymes from John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 7.”
Index
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
Abschied Symphony, 58
After Twelve Days of Rain, 28
Afterlife, 81
Ant Farm, 138
Antilamentation, 111
Aphasia, 30
Arizona, 154
As It Is, 39
Augusta, Maine, 1951, 150
Awake, 17
Bakersfield, 1969, 97
Before Surgery, 128
Bird, 20
Cello, 89
Chair, 152
Changeable Weather, 133
Cher, 112
Crossing, The, 74
Crow, 144
Dark Charms, 118
Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl, 49
Death of the Mother, 130
Dog Moon, 114
Dust, 34
Each Sound, 36
Emily Said, 122
Error’s Refuge, 148
Evening, 146
Face Poem, 87
Facts About the Moon, 72
Fall, 121
Family Stories, 60
Fast Gas, 37
Fear, 51
For the Sake of Strangers, 33
Garden, The, 10
Ghosts, 7
Girl in the Doorway, 18
Heart of Thorns, 140
Homicide Detective: A Film Noir, 105
How It Will Happen, When, 50
Ideas of Heaven, 142
Juneau Spring, 99
Kissing, 45
Lapse, 127
Last Words, 53
Late October, 27
Late-Night TV, 103
Laundromat, The, 21
Letter to My Dead Mother, 158
Life is Beautiful, 66
Life of Trees, The, 78
Little Magnolia, 90
Lost in Costco, 119
Lovers, The, 43
Men, 110
Mick Jagger (World Tour, 2008), 108
Mine Own Phil Levine, 101
Moon in the Window, 71
Mother’s Day, 116
My Mother’s Colander, 137
Ode to Gray, 145
On the Back Porch, 19
Only as the Day Is Long, 134
Orgasms of Organisms, The, 65
Pearl, 61
Piano with Children, 135
Quarter to Six, 14
Ravens of Denali, The, 75
Savages, 82
Second Chances, 120
Secret of Backs, The, 123
Smoke, 63
Staff Sgt. Metz, 95
Starling, 91
Sunday, 22
Superglue, 88
Thief, The, 40
This Close, 42
Tooth Fairy, The, 12
Trying to Raise the Dead, 55
Twelve, 35
Two Pictures of My Sister, 3
Under Stars, 131
Urn, 153
Vacation Sex, 83
What My Father Told Me, 5
What We Carry, 31
What’s Broken, 80
ALSO BY DORIANNE LAUX
The Book of Men
Facts About the
Moon
Smoke
What We Carry
Awake
The Poet’s Companion:
A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry
(with Kim Addonizio)
Copyright © 2019, 2011, 2006, 2000, 1994, 1990 by Dorianne Laux
All rights reserved
First Edition
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Book design by JAM Design
Production manager: Lauren Abbate
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Laux, Dorianne, author.
Title: Only as the day is long : new and selected poems / Dorianne Laux.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2019] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018038026 | ISBN 9780393652338 (hardcover)
Classification: LCC PS3562.A8455 A6 2019 | DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038026
ISBN: 978-0-39365-234-5 (ebk.)
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