Becca
One Art (with apologies to Elizabeth Bishop)
The art of losing is hard to master;
though others do seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss should be no disaster.
Lose someone every day. Accept the loneliness
of lost friends, the hour badly spent with another.
The art of losing is hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
acquaintances, and names, and where it was
you meant
to meet someone. All of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s trust. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved classmates went.
The art of losing is hard to master.
I lost two best friends, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, seven months—a true love.
I miss it. And it was a disaster.
—Especially losing him (the soothing poems, a chest
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s too hard to master
and I know it looks like a disaster.
Sensory Overload
He can’t not
think of me I know he
does.
He must.
because I can’t
hear
see
smell
feel
find
anything
that doesn’t have
his name
his scent
his taste
his smile
his self
all over it.
Extinguished
Once a fire burned in me but now it is extinguished
and I
cannot even catch the scent of smoke.
Ashes, ashes.
Only ashes.
It’s been a week of darkness. A week of
nothing, I can’t
even remember yesterday.
The artifacts of my disappearance: tissues
strewn across my floor, hair a tangled dirty mess,
jeans hanging on my hip bones
from seven days of being unable to eat.
There is no fire in here. The fire is gone.
I finally write these words—these sodden words—
because once I was a fire-maker, and I don’t
know how
to do anything else.
But they are damp words, wet words,
and they will never catch.
Scratching with bits of charcoal,
my hands are black—blackened—
with these attempts.
Not even one coal left
to light a torch, illuminate
what has happened in the last week,
what will happen in the week ahead.
I am blind, scratching in ashes.
There is no fire.
And I am cold.
Message in a Bottle
Midnight? Sunset? I do not know
light from day or dark from darker.
These waves toss me
from room to room,
not really seeing and
tasting only salt.
I am floating on a gray sea, giving
my body to the sharks, my dead heart to the tide,
when a message swims up,
a foreign text in a cell phone bottle:
you are the one who
knows everything in my soul—
which is lost forever.
Heavy with crust my eyes swim gray.
There is nothing anymore I want to see;
these are the scratchings of a crazy man,
someone alone and moored
on an island where the trees bear only
fruits of humiliation
and deceit,
where strange birds call from trees,
and the natives eat
each other’s hearts.
Gossip Fodder
Misty Monday gray outside:
weather for a zombie attack,
and perhaps they’d mistake me for their kind.
I stare
into my locker a long time before I can take
anything out,
trying to visualize myself
making it through another week at all,
when Freya appears,
poking her bony bent knees in the backs
of my straight ones,
making my legs half drop out
from under me.
Laughing, her face is all mouth
with four slits for eyelids, nostrils.
The rest, freckles.
So many sometimes—I don’t mean to—I wonder
what she got called
on the elementary school playground.
She’s had a Blow-Pop for breakfast:
a big wad of pink gum snaps in her teeth
and her tongue is green.
Just trying to make you laugh, she smacks,
grimacing a grin.
I feel miserable
and want to be left alone. I’m
not even sure why we’re friends anymore,
where she came from,
why she’s sticking around,
but I can’t say any of that because now
—now that I abandoned
all my other friends for Alec—
she’s pretty much all I’ve got.
Her voice turns serious: He wasn’t there.
And I know where she means and when she means,
and I know who she means and I don’t know
if I want to know this or not.
Probably a hot date, I snort. But she is ready for me.
No but she was. And looking for him, you could tell.
But trying not to.
I had
to hang out in the stoner garage I was so pissed,
seeing her there.
Her gum cracks and her gloss gleams. Her blue eyes
bore into mine. I can see
her nostrils working with excitement.
I don’t want to listen to her,
but it is better than just
reading alone in the library,
better than being with no one. And maybe
if Freya spins it right, I can make believe
it really is just another bit of gossip,
and not something awful
happening
to me.
Being Hamlet
We’re reading him out loud in class
and Mr. Burland is letting me
be the prince.
Dark days, dark mood,
dark-ness—
the dark of him enfolds me while I read,
and I am wrapped in his misery
instead of mine.
Oh unholy ghost
—oh twisting tempest—
how I too know the paralysis
of loss.
Reading, it’s as though I am him:
so angry you could weep,
so sad you want to kill someone,
so confused you can do neither.
I read.
And when I am done everyone looks
as though an electric current
has passed through the room.
No one
will look squarely at me.
It is like I’ve been possessed
and they are afraid
this sorrowed ghost will climb into them too.
Bittersweet Victory
The call for submission posters we created
have done their job.
After school at writer’s forum
and Mr. Burland is pleased, handing
two stacks of stories and poems over—already
a pile thick enough for a magazine,
with two weeks still to go
and more rolling
in.
Some of these are good,
Sara says, grunting in her own surprise and
handing me a batch to see
for myself.
Even Rama is smiling,
looking over Caitlyn’s shoulder, laughing
at a bad metaphor but
quite obviously tickled
by the bounty we’ve reaped
after such hard work.
We should be
tossing the papers up in the air, letting
these entries rain down on us like confetti.
We have
done better than last year and
our magazine
—from the initial looks of it—
might be
something
we would all actually read.
I should be happy.
I should be proud.
But I should also be able
to tell Alec
about this.
Sighting
Just after the rush of a was-busy Thursday
—people have cleared—and I’m
finally with my bussing bucket out on the floor
stacking sticky latte glasses,
scraping plates of brie-crossaint goo and
mooshed turtle brownie mess.
I
am moving to the next table when
our faces meet like a movie set
—the door swinging open right onto there she is—
the girl
kissing Alec in Freya’s photo,
the alienishly tall redhead: her.
the one I saw—yes I know for sure—
at the Lake House
two weeks ago in the kitchen as I
bolted from the party angry at Alec
and hating my life.
I saw her standing there—see her standing now—
and thought
how pretty she was,
and strange, with those red eyebrows.
Last week too—before I knew—
I served her cake.
She came in and
ordered decaf. I thought
it was interesting she was alone.
But now she is here—alone—and all I can think is
I am going to faint and then throw up.
Or maybe throw up and faint.
The rush of blood to the head is so strong I can’t see
and then I can’t move,
which is when she strides past
—almost close enough to touch—
in her smooth-fitting jeans,
her equestrian boots, and a cashmere wrap that’s
going to swallow her.
She is all slow motion:
red hair heaped up on her head, not even
wearing any makeup.
I am going to
collapse. My whole body is
shaking
but somehow I am bolting
—my rag still wet on the table—
to the kitchen and the giant walk-in cooler
where I squat among the bins of pre-cut lemons,
the quarts of organic cream,
wrapping my arms around my shins
—my face pressed in my knees—the cold giving me
a real reason to shudder.
I gulp in
big breaths of dry, cardboard-smelling air.
I want to cry
but I can’t.
I am already going to be in trouble
for leaving Margot out there,
for abandoning my post.
I cannot cry.
—I must go back out there I can’t stay in here
another minute—
I cannot cry.
—I will never stop crying—
I can’t.
Borrowed Determination
Emerging finally
from the safe, dark caverns of the kitchen
—damp-faced and still shaking—
unsteady
on my feet,
I am unsure
if I can face
the face
that just waltzed in.
What’s wrong with you? Margot says
with more disgust than concern—
making Nadia turn,
bringing the crying in me all over again.
My friend is
immediately
two small hands on my shoulders,
face set with strength.
She’s here, I whisper. She came in.
(Trailing unstoppable images of
her face-his-face-their-hands
behind her, reeking the perfume of
he-picked-me-not-you.)
Nadia’s tiny fingers squeeze
into my muscles,
she whispers
—but it is a warrior scream through my spirit—
You will not let her beat you.
Staring Contest
Does she have eyes
in the back of her head? Brown glaring mean ones
under all that red hair?
Is she somehow watching me
—watching her—
without moving a muscle,
without lifting her chin,
not even when
I overheat
a whole carafe of steamed milk that bubbles over
everywhere and
Margot says Shit loud enough to hear?
She must because the rest of her is
unmoving,
uncaring,
and perfectly blank—seeing, I guess
who can outcool who,
who can do it without ever
losing
her cool.
If so I am already losing.
If so she doesn’t have to rub it in.
She can’t have
just walked in here, she has to
know who I am. (She can’t have just walked in.
Why else is she here?)
Maybe she is waiting
for me to say something first, is challenging me
in some secret code I don’t know.
By now the back of her head
must be burning
from where my eyes are boring holes into it.
Soon her whole face will be on fire,
and she will look over, melting.
But no—
after two hours on that laptop she gets up, glides out,
doesn’t look back or sideways,
leaving me alone at the counter
the image of her burned in my eyes
for a very long time.
Secret Knowledge
After work I want to call Freya
—call someone—
since I can’t call Alec. I want to say
She came in today;
I know her. And she doesn’t know me.
I want to tell a person
who isn’t Nadia, someone
who will have a little more
Ohmygod in their voice, someone just as stunned
and astonished
as I was this afternoon,
someone who’ll want to hear
all the mean things inside me,
who will throw in one or two things herself.
Telling Freya though
will mean telling
half the school,
and I want to keep this to myself awhile:
a small stone of poison to roll between my fingers—
unsure how to use it
unsure
how much harm it could do.
Called Out
As the rest of my chemistry class
pulls desks together
for group problems,
Mrs. Baetz stops at my desk and
asks me into
her office
at the back of the room.
I have only been in here once before,
last year
when I assured her I understood
how far ahead I was
and
she could help the others
without any guilt.
Now she is guilty-faced again and
leaning forward on her knees.
She wants to know
am I okay?
What I like about Mrs. Baetz is
how she leaves me
to do my thing,
so this intimacy is weird.
I am not sure
where to look.
I tell her I am fine.
On her desk
a stack of yesterday’s tests, waiting.
Mine on top
—a sad, red C.
The numb feeling replaces
any shock or shame.
It could be anyone’s test there;
what does she want?
Just personal stuff, I finally give her,
and the chair squeaks
as she uncrosses her legs.
I can feel her
deciding about me.
I hope personal stuff now, she finally says,
won’t ruin your good future, Becca.
My head jerks up,
staring her full-on.
Now was my future
and it is already
very much ruined.
Bootstraps
When the phone rings after dinner I am
dry-eyed and empty on my bed,
staring at the ceiling
trying to pretend it’s not Friday.
I am so startled I answer
without looking;
brother’s Heya kid
is a strange surprise.
You know he’s a bastard is the first thing he says,
and it is so embarrassing
(Mom told him)
and so sweet
(he’s calling me)
that I laugh.
I start to ask him
why do boys do this?
What is the appeal
of someone shiny and new?
But instead he surprises
when he goes on:
I can also guarantee
he’s pretty eaten up.
This gets my
attention,
and he explains how
—invisibly—
Alec’s just as smashed-up as I am.
Because love wrecks us too, kiddo—
we just wear it different.
Sometimes
a lot worse,
because it’s on the inside.
The thought of
Alec sad
makes me sad
but it also feels better,
and Ian telling me anything
about his hidden secret heart
is enough to make
a lot of other things go away.
We change the subject to roommates and classes
and then he says, bootstrap time before he hangs up.
It was our mantra together
when mom and dad got divorced
when we forged signatures,
learned laundry,
put ourselves to bed.
So since he actually called
—and will be here
for his spring break