Coeur d'Alene

by Sue Standing

For years he secreted shards of words,
a magpie of language. Words creased
the corners of his mouth like letters

folded and unfolded too many times.
Now, his own face is a stranger’s.
He looks at himself in the mirror and says:

“He bothers me; I want him out of my room.”
It’s as baffling as the Hitchcock story
where the murder weapon, a frozen

leg of lamb, is cooking in the oven
by the time the detective arrives.
As if the icicle driven through the brain

has melted: no weapon, no fingerprints.
Who he was has vanished into the snow.
It’s been a long time since

the unglazed light of day touched him.
All our names are lost
in his artificial wakefulness.

I wait in a nerveless way for sleep
or something better to take him farther
than we can follow, where shadows

of birds sweep over his childhood body:
body of light, body of time,
full of joy in the humming field.

 

(from AGNI 35 & 56)

Sue Standing teaches at Wheaton College. Her poems have been published in APR, Poetry Northwest, The Nation, and elsewhere. Last year Zephyr Press put out her chapbook Amphibious Weather. (1982)