{"id":1523,"date":"2023-06-01T11:10:19","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/?page_id=1523"},"modified":"2023-06-01T11:10:19","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:10:19","slug":"pamela-sutton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/pamela-sutton\/","title":{"rendered":"Pamela Sutton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing at the Gates of the Arctic<\/h2>\n

The Cherry tree<\/p>\n

has shaken off its blossoms.<\/p>\n

Where there should be new leaves,<\/p>\n

branches are dripping<\/p>\n

with red enamel bees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your other family<\/p>\n

kept me away from your death bed.<\/p>\n

I will never know your last words.<\/p>\n

Grinding the bones of bees<\/p>\n

in the mortar and pestle of grief,<\/p>\n

they said: \u201chere, taste this.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead, you visit me each night<\/p>\n

and we discuss portals<\/p>\n

to the Dawn before Sunrise.<\/p>\n

You appeared again last night:<\/p>\n

Bare and muscular, holding out<\/p>\n

snow-drenched rose petals<\/p>\n

as your other family looked on.<\/p>\n

I stood on the marble stairs<\/p>\n

to your house: door unhinged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your other family did not allow our child and I<\/p>\n

to attend the ceremony where they poured your ashes<\/p>\n

into the Schulykill River. How could they know<\/p>\n

that river is an open artery of my heart? How<\/p>\n

could they know we made love there<\/p>\n

blanketed by cherry blossoms? How could they<\/p>\n

know that is where we took our daughter to feed<\/p>\n

the snow geese? Or, that I stand there each<\/p>\n

night waiting for Time to bend;<\/p>\n

for ice to embrace the cherry blossoms;<\/p>\n

waiting for the river to freeze over so I can skate<\/p>\n

all the way to Eternity where butterflies rain<\/p>\n

into your open hands\u2014standing<\/p>\n

at the Gates of the Arctic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I Want for My 60th Birthday<\/h2>\n
\n

Everything. I want it all back.<\/p>\n

I want to open the door to my double-Trinity<\/p>\n

which smells of fresh bright yellow paint.<\/p>\n

I want the cats, Louis and Clarke, to greet my<\/p>\n

daughter, who is still just 4 years old. I want<\/p>\n

her wearing a St. Peter\u2019s school blazer,<\/p>\n

with the crest of the cross and key.<\/p>\n

I want 3:30 sunlight hitting the stained glass<\/p>\n

window above the door mantle;<\/p>\n

making a rainbow on the virgin wood floor,<\/p>\n

felled from an 1820 forest; uneven against<\/p>\n

my back, but I don\u2019t care because I\u2019ve made<\/p>\n

my child into an airplane, one that will never<\/p>\n

crash while I control gimbal and yaw: just laughter<\/p>\n

and spins; gentle landings and make-believe<\/p>\n

places\u2014like her drawings I\u2019ve taped all over<\/p>\n

the fridge. We hear the doorbell,<\/p>\n

and know it\u2019s her father, so we race<\/p>\n

to the door to see what he\u2019s brought over.<\/p>\n

This time it\u2019s a child\u2019s rug with rockets and planets<\/p>\n

which fits perfectly in her room on the 2nd floor.<\/p>\n

It matches the four orange fish he brought<\/p>\n

over last week: John, Paul, Ringo, George.<\/p>\n

Yes, I even want the fish back. And I want Emily<\/p>\n

showing off her latest song on her 1\/8th violin.<\/p>\n

I want him, again, choking back tears<\/p>\n

over the music and miracle of our child as he lights<\/p>\n

a cigar and walks out the back porch, past<\/p>\n

the blue Ulysses butterfly encased in glass.<\/p>\n

I want him out there smoking and admiring<\/p>\n

the Dutch wooden shoes I turned into planters<\/p>\n

the way they do in the Netherlands. I want<\/p>\n

marigolds blooming everywhere: vermilion, orange, gold.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want Steve back, not just hearing his voice, or touching his<\/p>\n

black curls smelling of whiskey. I want him in my bed<\/p>\n

in my arms in that double-trinity on Hall Street:<\/p>\n

not watching him stagger up a steel, industrial staircase<\/p>\n

–so many flights–to a forbidding office with shut windows.<\/p>\n

There is my desk but I\u2019m not there; I\u2019m just watching,<\/p>\n

and locking windows against the greedy angels with their<\/p>\n

bitten-down nails. As always he slings a briefcase over<\/p>\n

my empty chair. In every dream the briefcase carries<\/p>\n

a cryptic note. But this time it says: \u201cKeep everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Pamela Sutton is the author of two poetry collections: Burning My Birth Certificate<\/em>, which won the 2016 Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, and Pocket Gospel<\/em>. Her poetry has appeared many times in Best American Poetry<\/em>, including in The Best of Best American Poetry<\/em> anthology. The first chapter of her novel, Tamer of Horses<\/em>, was received an award from and was published by Glimmer Train <\/em>in 2010, and she has been nominated for the Rona Jaffe Prize. She taught Critical Writing at the University of Pennsylvania for many years and currently teaches Critical Writing at the Colorado Early Colleges, Denver, CO. She holds an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University where she was the George Starbuck Creative Writing Scholarship\/Fellowship winner.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standing at the Gates of the Arctic The Cherry tree has shaken off its blossoms. Where there should be new leaves, branches are dripping with red enamel bees.   Your other family kept me away from your death bed. I will never know your last words. Grinding the bones of bees in the mortar and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2391,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1523\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}