Poetry by Marcy Rae Henry
unfinished/the Taos hum
when orange has been
smashed to shit
pulverized to sticky
pummeled so much it turns yellow—
that is the color, my synesthetic friend says.
have you ever heard the ‘Taos hum?’
i ask. it could be aliens or mind
control. it could drive you mad.
someone whispered, it looks unfinished...
in front of an Agnes Martin painting,
like an embarrassed public prayer.
cloudy blue barely distinguishable
from white.
you wouldn’t remember it.
you probably didn’t notice how,
like Martin’s lines, we almost touched,
almost became visible to each other.
not everyone hears ‘the hum.’
some are hearers and some are listeners.
my friend said he could make a portrait of us
looking as if ‘little work was put in.’
August 25, 2020
three:thirty. late night becomes early morning.
rain patters the window kaleidoscopically.
last visit to Walgreens, shelves were empty of sleeping pills.
a gothy Brit told me Victorians slept biphasically until the industrial age ruined it
and if empty American shelves weren’t oxymoronic she didn’t know what was.
when i brought up the monarchy she said that’s just moronic.
cuatro:y media de la mañana. ¿cómo se llama ‘la Reina de Salsa’?
‘La Guarachera de Cuba.’ la que cantó ‘si en mis sueños te di el alma mía…’
¿porqué no me puedo recordar?
perimenopause… dementia… the 2020 American Trifecta?
los mexica didn’t believe in el alma
but in la memoria.
they made offerings of perritos, chiquitos
placed hearts in a bowl
bloody, beating offerings to the gods of rain
the memory of sacrifice in our veins
***
March 8: the last time the neighbors and i went out. twisted hippo: drinks and appetizers,
we ate off each other’s plates, tasted each other’s drinks.
how bad do you think this will be? worse than bird flu? swine flu?
March 16: the ravaged mercado. dry foods, frozen fruit, picking thru remaining packets of vegetable soup. a guy in an army jacket and dark glasses skulking around, saying he had it
and clearing the aisles so he could load up his cart.
(in India i wrote with ink in journals and learned to live without coffee, salt, toilet paper,
a refrigerator and, at times, electricity.)
June 16: i’ve not returned to the mercardo. one friend drops off wipes and port.
another, forty pounds of dog food. les dejo frijoles y calabaza con chile y tomate,
comida de los Azteca, en la puerta.
(the family i lived with in India scraped every grain of rice off our plates and back into
the communal pot. i do the same. my habit of saving bitefuls of food for vegetarian goulash
no longer annoying.)
Ray has promised to make this my epitaph:
she’s finally free of loathing herself for wasting food and using so much water.
***
in the dream world i’m about to fly. Ray and i are rushing to get to the airport.
i look down and i have on his girlfriend’s heels. he says she’ll need those.
just like that, we’re on a back porch filled with shoes. i have my pick,
but none have pairs. i grab two yellow canvas low tops, one bigger than the other.
the porch starts to break into splinters, as if a dream within the dream.
we run towards the door and the floorboards plummet behind us.
we can make it, i know we can.
***
two dreams later i wake hot and humid.
when ovulation stops
the period should become like punctuation.
el cuerpo debería celebrar. lindo y libre.
pero no.
it’s sweaty and forgetful.
reminiscent of nothing and not sexy.
another evolutionary glitch.
***
me levanto con Celia’s nombre como una canción en la cabeza.
pero la vida no es un carnaval. it’s a wait in line for funnel cakes
or the fun house.
the dog leads me through a wet-heavy August morning.
close to the river, sidewalks are wide and well-maintained.
children write on them with thick chunks of chalk: we’re gonna be alright!
rain erased vowels and consonants in cheery pastel lists of thank-yous.
the kids will come out later to fill them in.
