also by sarah arvio
poetry
night thoughts
Sono: Cantos
Visits from the Seventh
translation
Poet in Spain
this is a borzoi book published
by alfred a. knopf
Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Arvio
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Arvio, Sarah, 1954– author.
Title: Cry back my sea : 48 poems in 6 waves / Sarah Arvio.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. |
Identifiers: lccn 2020048966 (print) | lccn 2020048967 (ebook) | isbn 9780593319505 (hardcover) | isbn 9780593319512 (ebook)
Subjects: lcgft: Poetry.
Classification: lcc ps3601.r78 c79 2021 (print) | lcc ps3601.r78 (ebook) | ddc 811/.6—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048966
lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048967
Ebook ISBN 9780593319512
Cover photograph by Caracolla / Shutterstock
Cover design by Janet Hansen
ep_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0
In memory of Rachel Wetzsteon
and
for all suffering lovers
CONTENTS
A Note to the Ebook Reader
Small War
Shrew
Gosling
Animal
Neck
Rat Idyll
Wood
Whorl
Sage
Heart
Nest
Aurora (or Ra)
Puck
Bodhisattva
Algarve
Sides (or Sidereal)
Wreck
Crow
Peas
Fey
Rimbaud (or Desert Love)
Silk Road
Shah
Ether
Kissing Her (or Morning Glory)
Trinkets
Sinbad (or Symbiotic)
Body
Hitchcockian
Aguántate
Tu Mi Vinci (or Hang)
Sad (or de Sade)
Shoe
Handbag
Tanager
Red Dress
Peacock
Garden
Regal
Nonpareil
Sheepfold
Rodeo of the Rose
The Rose
Bed
Hard Place
Some Hand
Go & Go
Sponge
Acknowledgments
A Note to the Ebook Reader
Please note that line breaks within poems will vary across e-reading platforms. To experience the intended presentation of each poem, please experiment with adjusting the text size on your e-reading device or platform to the smallest comfortable reading size.
Small War
I thought I had left behind the darkness
of the heart that was a plan leaving it
behind I planned to enter the trance of
sensual peace and fulfillment that was
my plan But the best-laid plans I say and
pause thinking it better not to mention
mice with their trail of dark images strange
scurry into dark holes the sense of un-
cleanliness the gamey smell a small-game
smell Oh there’s a better word the game
of the heart small game that’s good too like small
arms and light weapons this is a small war
a small dark and secret war of the heart
Deer running fleet chased by the hounds
No not that game Heart war against all plan
thrusting out of its dark hole and
scurrying through the room of the life
Scurry or gallop the sound of horses’
hooves beating on a distant hill I’ve heard that
and thought they were running through my heart
Great gallop on the hill of a dark heart
Though war is too great a word even
“small war” when we remember the torture
chambers the real torture on the real flesh
the bullet piercing the flesh-and-blood heart
There are no words great or small to describe
the private torture of the hounded heart
Shrew
I hate my heart What is this wild and bad
renunciation I hate my heart Why
does it hurt me even now after so
much raking over after so much ruck
It’s hard to call my heart it speaking of
part of me that is almost all of me
because what is there that is not my heart
Tucked between my breathing lungs it beats
it breathes it is my thoughts What thought do I
have that isn’t folded inside my heart
Is there such a heartless thought I
don’t have one When I walk I carry what—
my heart on the stick of my body Or
my courage in the sticking place Oh screw
don’t I have the courage of my good heart
Is this my scarecrow longing for his heart
I’m scared of my heart the old rags and bones
the rage a rage for order pale Ramon
Even though I’ve raked my heart it rages
Beshrew me I know my heart is good Shrew
little sparrow will you come to my hand
Oh screw I eat crow I crow my heart out
Am I the shrew to it or it to me
To no one but my heart and it to me
Gosling
I am or I was
a small thing like a sparrow or a toad
or the offspring of something not so small
or the sound of glenn gould humming to himself
these sufferings of a small person wiping her nose
oh soul me
I am only my small humble self
heaving inward and needing to be nursed
a slip of a thing needing a nurse mother
a gosling needing a mother goose
a ghost mom to come down and be my mom
secretly where no one would gawk with envy
that I was getting more ghost than she was
I was my own goose not good at soothing
nurses should be soothers I was not that
having had no lessons not even a hand
or a handout no helping hand or heart
in the nursery or the gooseries
for hearts’ sake and souls’ sake stop sniveling
oh soul me I am dying to get up and fly
oh sorrow me in a hurry
to the heaven of goslings with their nannies
and sparrow chicks and tadpoles
chicking and poling and sparrowing
a tad t
oo late to play but not too soon
Animal
I am very nervous in myself I
was always nervous as an animal
angling for its home and then homing in
toward a home but never finding it I
was that sort of lost animal though
animals are rarely lost We are lost
as they are not we are the burrowers
in our own dark mud when yes the light and
so on Not to be dark or obtuse when
the light is wonderful This wonder that
we should be so dark and lost when the world
was designed to be a home for us Or
were we merely its bad accident Or
and obscure Or did we come randomly
without meaning or message brought along
by hunger viciousness And yes the beauty
that we never saw or that the vicious
never saw but speaking of myself I
tried to live in beauty and found it hard
even harrowing We are made to drive
at joy and not to strike and when we strike
we miss I am nervous as I said I
wanted all I struck at it and didn’t
hit or battered wildly and got a hit
Only enough to make me hit again
Lost hunter sad animal homing soul
Neck
This isn’t done Grabbing your girlfriend’s neck
isn’t done I mean it is done by god
often enough but not when I’m the girl
or the friend I love you with all my soul
and all my I don’t know what else to say
my friendliness and my girlishness
but by god my friend do not grab my neck
Neck with me nestle your neck into mine
I’ve been watching the necks of the geese
my geese our geese flying over our heads
and I’ve said goose wander in my chamber
You goose don’t be a gander don’t be a
geek Be a Greek be a pagan be
a lover of life of me of my neck
Grab my neck my shoulder or my breast
but sweetly if you must my sweet goose
or I’ll call the police Not that the Greeks
were any better at love than we are
always stabbing at their men and their gods
but my god better than the Romans
and their strikes at the neck their split necks
All they did was say do not do do not
do that and thwack off with their heads
So if you ask me what Greek is I say
give me a Greek over a Roman
oh romance romance it’s Greek to me
it was Greek to the Romans and to me
to my roaming heart and my Grecian
gods to my friends and my gods and you
you my silly goose and my strangler
Rat Idyll
You irascible rascal O my rat
O rapscallion of my most raving dreams
I had my sights on you idol of my eye
O rapist of my inner thoughts and hopes
roping me into your kaleidoscope
around and around around and around
enrapturing my every root and tap
O my satrap you said it I’m trapped
In my rapt joy I rally on and on
Sit down I say but you won’t sit down
I sat down and said sit down and rap
Let me rave you said let me rave and drink
Let me sleep I said let me go to sleep
O my scamp I’m sated—what a sad rap
Must never let you get my goat ever
Must be cool when you rave never get hot
never let you scapegoat me O satyr
this isn’t satire though it almost is
slapstick yes really a slap and a stick
I know what we need an artful escape
some far-out art and some far landscape
not a nightcap or a cup of icy noon
A slow boat to an island or an ice cap
the inscape of an I-land and you-land
Wood
The last thing I ever wanted was to
write about grief Did you think I
would your grief this time not mine Oh good
grief enough is enough in my life that is
enough was enough I had all those
grievances all those griefs all engraved
into the wood of my soul But would you
believe it the wood healed I grew up and
grew out And would you believe it I found
your old woody heart sprouting I thought
good new growth Good new luxuriant green
leaves leaves on their woody stalks And I said
I’ll stake my life on this old stick I’ll stick
and we talked into the morning and night
and laughed green leaves and sometimes a flower
Oh bower of good new love I would have it
I would bow to the new and the green
yes I know a good stick so often and then
a stick in my ribs in my heart Your old
dark wood your old dark gnarled stalk
sprouting havoc And now I have grief again
and now I’ve stood for what I never should
green leaves of morning dark leaves of night
Whorl
Then I spoke into the whorl of your ear
isn’t this love oh my warlock my lord
Would you call this a war or a quarrel
All those hard words heard in my ears
Our word hoard is harder than a hatchet
heavier than a heart on the warpath
I didn’t say you whored me no not that
I can hear you whooping in the love war
the warping of our words on the field of war
How will you have me if I will have you
How will you let me if I will let you
touching my forehead and my temple
fingering my forelock as you touch my skin
I wonder if a whisper is warranted
Will you hear me if I speak in low tones
a hue and cry will you hear me if I cry
Here here I mean will you have me here
linking the place with the sound of the word
with the love hoard heard in your ear
This is love isn’t it a war in your ear
love love a word in the whorl of your ear
Sage
O sage I know I am I am a sage
I know unkindness is a selfish act
a straight fish act or a furtive act
fish or fowl or a slice of the knife
In the word selfish have you seen the fish
I meant to write you a poem of love
green sage gray sage and sings the silver wind
wing me on the wind these were all my songs
The geese in their V’s are yipping like dogs
along the selvedge of the winter woods
There must be an edge to the self a hedge
against hell must be an edge or a verge
Here is the self-edge that you cut against
Here I am savaged I meant to be saved
O sage I know I am I am a sage
I know unkindness is a savage act
Is your heart assuaged Well mine is not
O sweet here I am whispering an urge
for the good life if goodness can be had
the great fields the geese the edge of the wood
What scraps can I salvage for the soup When
soup can’t assuage there is no love to save
Heart
I lay down and said will you kiss me and
then I cried the tears of the world for you
your heart broken and mine so broken
broken-toy bad and broken-spirit sad
Spirit is a strange word and then the word
broken—for a hard thing—“break a spirit”—
Have you thought what that means—“break a white wisp”—
though I don’t know why I say “white” when
it could be any color Broken heart
also defies literal truth Plump wet thing
and yet it breaks The truth is what I want
—literal truth refusing metaphor—
to get back to the redness of the heart
though I’ve never seen a heart in life
I feel it ache this is a literal ache
Your spirit life what color has it been
heart’s suffering what color is your stripe
white as a bag or a bone red as a rag
I wanted to believe and belief too
is hard Hard enough to break and it does
Nest
And then there came a day that was a day
a world of my wanting with you in it
and all the small creatures came to our side
mewing and cheeping as small creatures do
a day I had wanted for a long time
a small-creature hour in the life of our day
where there were many places to lie down
and sigh and sleep and cogitate and hug
a huge happening among the small lives
a little cuddle with a dream in it
a coddled egg an apron with a bib
a nest for nourishing the ragged nerves