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Poetry
by Jennifer Houle
Derivative
I am of Gaul. Of Sicily and chestnut trees, of outside Montreal.
I am of the left-field, a curveball, changing all who held me
bawling, blessed. Fell from the stars. Maybe. My six sisters weep
in autumn from the shoulder of the bull, trailed by Aldebaran,
urging me home to reignite a darkened star with gaslight. God.
I am of Acadie, a sinking island, Massachusetts, old green deities
and candles to call love back from beyond. I am of the haunted
willows, pewter rings and pentagrams, a mourner of the drowned,
a keeper of arnica root in what is Danvers now. I am of County Donegal.
And I am of the sand upon this sickly shore. I am of the factory slum,
of festivals and feast days, cigarettes and scholarships, ways out.
I am of the forest people, of the shining birches, narrow paths
in autumn, of the patted, patched folkloric, of the fairies, oak and ash,
cluster of hamadryads, of lured, drawn Arianrhod—dashed. Of ninefold
Blodeuwedd. Of bee-stung lip, of flower face, of sparkling rivulet
reflecting hanging blooms of cone, of ample breasts and beds of needle leaf,
the pricked young skin of craving. Let me go. I am of the hardest, longest
burning woods, of cold nights waiting out the danger, young September,
dark-haired, swarthy ally of the mist, the fog, the cottage stove, the rose. I am
of working mothers, diplomats and doctors, of firsts to be admitted, graduate,
divorce. Of wanting something better, losing language, picking language up,
of cracked and blinding names washed up on rocks. I am of heretics, advertisers.
I am any. I am either. Tallest woman in a family of short women. I’m 5’5”.
Soberest, most wary, prone to visions. I am of the Celtic knot, the mortar
and the pestle, seawater and sulfur. Daughter of a street kid, I came
hard, a heathen after centuries of Catholics. First-born girl of warring strangers,
I crowned into trouble and soon learned I was the trouble, here she comes,
the rotten kid. I am of the beautiful, the lost. I am of paint and hardware stores
and airports, of young summertimes away. And I was rich, and I flew open in
the storm, and I was caught. There were no universities. The world held nothing, then,
but shopping malls and sex. And I was lost. And I was turned around, and lost again.
And I came back. I came through ice and hormone surge, through gasping uterus
and broken ribs, cracked pelvis, collarbone. I came through pill and liniment, through
traffic and unrest and crushing debt. I came and went, went nowhere fast. But read.
I have come to venture one more guess. I am December born, of star and goat and fish,
of the whirled and flung triskelion, of willful, lucky devils, of innumerable ascents.
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[Distillate © HA&L + Jennifer Houle | {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]
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