Four poems for a Midwinter Day

for/after Bernadette Mayer (1945-2022)

 

1.

Love                       as all transition, flight—a concentrated dash

of windowsill, groceries,
childcare                                      , this reinvention

of blue. What day is it? Will I be soon?           Our elder child
today at school                  , our younger,

here, this       lingering cough. Another grey weekday. Aoife drags

herself in bare feet, blanket wrapped                          pyjamas. I hold up facts

, a desperation                                        of snowy trees
and tires                  , white streets. This time   of plague.

 

2.

A song                              of Bernadette,                   what hand
across this biographical feature

of children, laundry, library. How

the I                       yearns. A way to make                 and making, to

make sense, what have you. Where
you have gone. This richness, an articulation

of journaled time. My love is like

a lobster, or                       a red             balloon, the pinnacle
of window pane, this                             frosted          peak.

 

3.

A curve, and tension                              of old masters. Be strong,
we are here             for a reason,

or reasons. An accidental

change of speed. Be strong, Bernadette,
Aoife,                     Robert Alan. Be memory, mindful                   , as much

as your own heart. This turbulence                  of
such textured surfaces. Perhaps

there is no cure                           or respite. I wonder: do

the house mice                 underneath             the stairs
declare: We have

a good life, here. This poem                  could have been an email.

 

4.

The day, the day, it            gets away from me.
The day.