2019 / poetry / author

AMANDA LINSMEIER

PRECIOUS SCARS

…

I am a vase, I am full of worry
lines, cracks
right down the middle, spread like veins
down one side.
I am ceramic,
I am broken, I have been
broken,
I am mended, I am mending
myself again.

I read that in Japan they paint
these cracks golden
kintsugi to show that objects are all the more beautiful

for having been
broken (and god, do I love that,
though there is no one here to paint my scars pretty).

and I am holding
all of this inside me,
even as I bust at the seams.
I shelter these tender
stems, petals dropping over the edge,
doing my best to keep everything together.
I am a thing of beauty, a thing of courage.
tell me that I am a vase
and I will answer back
still, even so, don’t think
that
I am hollow. 

MAKING EGGS

…

this morning I crack an egg, I think about all the little tragedies that happen every day, all the things I keep from my children, news stories, the snippets on the radio that have me cringing, not even the big stuff but the small horrors we’ve grown accustomed to. every moment there are a million broken hearts.

and I think about the ways we break open and fall out of happiness how years and years later, after we think we’re all healed up, sewed shut, all better, we will shake and shimmy right out of ourselves, spread free like a scream, shocking wet tears, snatched at the throat, captured.

this morning I woke up, bleeding red on my white bed, ache of shedding strung low in my back, and suddenly I want to fall onto my knees and howl, grieving over all the things that were taken from me, all the hopes I gave away.

this morning I crack an egg. and I think about how experiencing closure
doesn’t mean that one day we won’t break open once again.

FLOWERS

…

flowers can’t do much.
even I, an anthophile,
know this.

and today, I am helpless.
today, I cry as I watch the news.
today I press
my children to my softness,
say be kind,
say love.

I think,
I. Don’t. Know. What. To. Do.
and in this way
I feel small.

my hands may as well be flowers,
the way I cup my children’s faces,
the way I cradle
their soft hearts to mine,
feeling like I am nothing, I have
nothing save for these hands,
this voice, these words.

I say, you are my whole garden,
say I love you,
say open your eyes,
say be kind,
we are all of us crying for rain.

I say love,
and in this way, I suppose I forgive
the helplessness of my hands,
this voice.
these words.

I say love, and they are
listening.