Numb Aubade with Bloodhound
by Traci Brimhall
After, I tried to dress suffering up like a plan,
听 听 听 听 听but I couldn鈥檛 tell the difference between
听 听 听 听 听debridement and licking a wound to keep it
as open as a confessional. I watched an eclipse
revise itself into moonlight wearing nothing
听 听 听 听 听but a veil. I didn鈥檛 expect the ardor maddening
听 听 听 听 听into grief or how therapy could only scab
a marriage for an afternoon. Not the way my leg
inched away in bed. Not the way I fell through
听 听 听 听 听a tree like a ghostbird or how a bloodhound
听 听 听 听 听led me to the wound鈥檚 evidence in the wild.
At first, I wanted yesterdays folded into tomorrows,
an accordion string of paper dolls each holding
听 听 听 听 听the same dedication to kindness. But tomorrow
听 听 听 听 听foreshadowed thirty-three boxes of books
and the guest room mattress. The future was culinary,
volcanic, a cherry pie with obsidian crust. It asked me
听 听 听 听 听to be less of a shapeshifting messiah, and more
听 听 听 听 听the god a girl needs, more mother than I wanted.
So I let my shame be collaborative and tragic,
like an arsonist dying in a stranger鈥檚 fire.
听 听 听 听 听For years, my mirror tried to embarrass me.
听 听 听 听 听I brushed my teeth, naked and alone. But
the saddest parts of my body were gorgeous,
radiant with vulnerability鈥攁pathetic belly,
听 听 听 听 听knotted upper back, my morning whimper
听 听 听 听 听and limp before the medication kicked in.
I grew tired of hurting, of time鈥檚 didactic
gloss revising loss into lessons. I still flossed
听 听 听 听 听but stopped listing my gratitude for good coffee
听 听 听 听 听on sale, for the stranger whistling outside
my office, for paying off the credit card.
I even numbed to roadside ditches, those
听 听 听 听 听oubliettes for litter and hawk feathers, until
听 听 听 听 听wild sunflowers shook my attention there.
I lost myself. It was a normal mortal
loneliness until the bloodhound bounded
听 听 听 听 听out of the wilderness鈥攈ow loyal, how
听 听 听 听 听unlike me鈥攎y heart in his mouth as he shook it.
Joyful, he returned my pain like a gift, and I took it.
Sometimes you fall out of love, even with something you say you鈥檒l love forever. When I was younger, I couldn鈥檛 imagine ever feeling anything but passionate commitment and fascination with poetry, but that love did wane. For the past couple of years I鈥檝e been writing back to some of my earliest poems from graduate school as a way to court my old flame and bring back some of that heat. While I鈥檝e never used this title before, the first poems I wrote in grad school that felt like I was really surprising myself were aubades. I wanted to see what my new losses would say about my old losses and how much of a pattern I might be living (and loving and losing). The ending also borrows itself from an earlier aubade. I don鈥檛 see it as a sequel, per se, but it reminds me of what Jane Hirshfield said about how revision is no arbitrary tinkering but a honing of the self at the deepest level. It鈥檚 also what听Inigo Montoya says when he loses faith in听The Princess Bride: 鈥淵ou told me to go back to the beginning. And so I have.鈥�
听is the author of four collections of poetry:听Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod;听Saudade;听Our Lady of the Ruins, selected by Carolyn Forche虂 for the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize; and听Rookery, selected by Michelle Boisseau for the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Award.