Cambridge, January 2001
by Sally Thomas
Seagulls surf the wet
Updrafts over roofs
A hundred miles inland.
Every weather's a weather
Of gulls, a scream against
The bottle-blue or cloud-
Mottled sky, the one
Constant besides rain
Spittling the window:
These birds who revel in being
Blown off-course. If
They had any idea,
That is, where they meant
To go in the first place.
I was never a believer
In resolutions. What's resolve
But another word for wish?
Ask the fisherman's wife
How far she got on wishes.
Would I resolve, say, to let
A third child choose
Itself? What can I
Say I wish for? Just now
My two already-wished-for
Children, resolved into flesh,
Gallop down the hall,
Speaking in whinnies.
I wrench the door open
And shout, Inside feet!
What are inside feet?
They'd be justified in asking.
We have the same feet
Wherever we go. Instead
They say, Okay. They wait
for the door to close. Gallop
gallop, neigh neigh. Does control
End at conception? Or
Only our belief in it?
The rain's tsunami threatens
To wash the whole country
Into its inhospitable
Hinterland, the sea.
We inhabit a culture of rain,
Learn to speak its commonplaces:
Wellieboots, waterproofs-as if
We needed to prove water's
Existence. We think in a language
At once ours and not ours.
At breakfast, our son holds up
A spoon. What's the English
Word for this? He won’t believe
That spoon could possibly be the answer.
Where does it come from, this desire
To shape-shift, to be, say,
A horse for the afternoon?
Perhaps some memory
Persists, of pre-life,
Or not pre-life, but life
Before it's named, flesh and blood,
Yes, and also possibility.
Perhaps children remember
Without knowing
The call that makes them
Step so fluidly out
Of their bodies, though
They never entirely
Leave-the body
Goes with them
Through locked gates,
Across snowy pastures
Their hooves leave unprinted.
Empty branches tap
The leaded chapel window:
Stainless daylight, white
Walls, the unprompted
Revelation of the world
Not watching us at prayer-
At the motions of prayer, our lips
Moving over words
Which like our own names
Begin to lose sense
When we overhear ourselves
Whispering them-not watching
But with us, cold,
Immaculate, clear.
We never imagined having
To say, Take your feet
Off the celery. Don't lick me.
The corkscrew is not a toy.
What did we expect?
Amnesia, entropy
Extend their present-tense
Mercies to our children who are
Not whatever we dreamed:
Vague, two-dimensional
Composites of our childhood
Photographs. Quiet. Able
To play the piano. Sew.
Finish what they begin.
Absolve us of ourselves.
After church, a friend
Offers her baby. She
Drinks her coffee, grateful
For a minute, two hands free.
The baby snuffles, exhales
Warmly into my neck,
And I think, Oh,
It didn't hurt so much.
And other lies, as if I thought
Nothing of having hands
Open to take the weight
Of a child who won't wake me
From an hour's sleep. This
Can pass for a decision.
My translation of a word
Like goal. Or sane.
I could fit a travel cot
Between my bed and desk-
Anything's possible. Or if
Impossible, still possibly worth doing.
Cot: what the baby
Sleeps in. Crib: what
The manger becomes when surrounded
By plaster statuettes wearing painted
Looks of reverence or weariness-never
Surprise, though you would think
Someone might have been surprised.
In bed, in the borrowed
Time before the alarm,
We hold each other, hoping
Maybe this time it won't
Happen, the day will hang
Back shyly at its own
Threshold. Even now
The sky is paling, a white
Sliver between the curtains.
Eleven years married, are we
Any closer to knowing
What we want? Our wedding
Vows told us precious
Little. Not what to
Expect, only to cleave,
That strange word which means
Its opposite. I close
My eyes. This could be
A stranger's body my hands
Move across, mapping again
Desire's universal, alien terrain.
O for the wings-but where
Would I go? Where are you not?
All of you, husband, children,
Calling my name, calling me
Back from myself, back into
Myself. Erasable
Only by death. This
Must be what it means,
One flesh. I carry
Your voices in the pocket
Of my ear. We speak
Of making vows, lovemaking,
As if such things didn't exist
Until we think.
And they occur to us.
Morning wind hurls itself
Against the house, forces rain
In through the absence
Of caulking. In watery daylight
Beached raindrops glint
Like jellyfish along
The windowsill. Outside,
Birds are still free-falling
Like leaves across the housetops,
Blown away but never out of the sky.
