Mercy Rule
If it’s hard, start small: throwaway thing you said in passing that’s kept you sheet-thrashing all night. Stack of coupons you let expire; waves uncaught when you came in early despite offshore wind. Friend’s voice message deleted before even hearing what’s wrong. It’s a long list. Forgive lipstick on wallpaper, smeared, acquit yourself the tradition of tantrums every time Mamma walked through the door. With all your baby-girl hurts saved, squawked; at last forget the trumpet abandoned in its velvet case. & those nights you stayed in studying as the safer thing. Stayed close at the hometown school, excuse your chickening out. O-chem model set lost at the wake, all the slides you did not plate, drug targets never bullseyed. Box of tampons swiped from the store; every time you forgot a bag, chose plastic or next-day shipping. Let go idling in the drive cause the song made you feel alive. Wasn’t done yet. Joyriding; riding away from one who would’ve lassoed the moon for you—absolve yourself not crying. All the no’s you swallowed, head pushed down, & how you forgave endlessly—: the married he who wiped thighs clean—so tenderly—when he’d leave. Then years you palmed this secret close & frequent as rosary beads. Or fierce bargains disguised as prayers—not knowing not to ask—what tyranny of your own plans. Child you did/not have. Convinced you could pound avenues, endless—every dawn, decade on decade—& somehow not crush your spine. Now harder to explain manic nights you ransacked the pantry, still weren’t done, shoveled a sock-it-to-me bundt, lost it, did it again. Again & again release all the weeks of grayscale you let creep from outside-in. Invited. Let exasperation go—thick, unsavory as Ensure—& most, your plain cruelty: leaving the straw out of reach for he who couldn’t move. A muscle. The both of you on last nerves. Last straw. No need to excuse excuses; they’ve already been dismissed. You know this poem is petition but when it begs forgive, if forgiveness is a gift, then it must trade hands. & no, this isn’t a trick—left not telling the right—or is it. Nothing’s given. You are the me I am remitting—we will have to hold to it
**
Gray skies, when I hear You Are My Sunshine
& think of the lawn chair I’d rake across
the asphalt of my first apartment
complex lot years ago (matchbox window, Midwest
gloom) to catch a spot of sun. A tan had nothing
to do with it, nor cabin fever, since I’d brave
his porch long-past frozen—& me no smoker—in it
for the long haul. Fire at the tip of the Kool at the lips
of the light I was chasing. Soon learned the part-
sun/part-cloud logo forecasted clamp-down gray,
that I should be ready for sunbreaks—the weakest
drove me down to the truck—chair blanket book—
couldn’t miss the parting. Neighbors stopped
leaving CaliTan coupons; brought cold smiles
of melon instead. Thought me more than a little
touched, lying in the bed of the Ranger, waiting to be
struck. Not-from-here. The richer the light, the longer
dark shifted below my eyelids’ cantaloupe-
glow—even back inside. & everything that I craved
receded in haunting shapes—: then I orbited a man
with constellations spanning his arms, plus the most
merciful touch breaking eggs to their pan. Sunny-side
up, whole, even—as he was yoked to another. Her orbit.
& this was the bind. Or, that I swallowed a magnet
at birth & couldn’t iron it out. Couldn’t bear to be
anywhere—certainly not in the room, years later,
when the dial tone hung each afternoon as daddy
summoned force enough to mash the shoulder pad
under his chin programmed to call my mamma—
he wanted her to know: you are my sunshine, my only
sunshine he slow-croaked, strong or strained (according
to heat, how late the day had lapsed) you make me ha-
a breath—the machine cut off—re-group, re-mash—ppy
when skies are gray—though he never knew, as one shadow
grew into another, what time she’d click through the door—
some days he’d call once more—: you’ll never know
reprise cost him dear, how much I love you—please
don’t, I’d say, she’s in a meeting, you called her once
already, have no breath left but…he couldn’t
help it. She on his mind all the time—as ours are,
on the worlds we have &—she would circle
back. Bodies in orbit pull so hard tides form; I’m still
in the undertow—or I can tell it this way: I followed
original light west & now the light
has left. Yes & no. In one lifetime, a dead star
never goes out, but careens through the skies.
My hometown has no street lights & 257
sunny days per year. Came to pass in rooms
awash. Did I mention that, at the root, home is akin
to haunt? Let everything happen to you; I’m haunted
by all my loves. Or, I can say it like this—: my sun
spoke in bonfire & brandywines, with what he could
raze & raise. Which amounts to the same thing—drew
me close, left no record—voicemail nor declaration—
I was there for the singing; the song I can hardly
recall. As I lie sleeping I’ll hear it sometimes, a heat
from far off—when I awake—a changed light
behind the blinds shifts into gear—each turn
farther away. & oh I—I was mistaken—words hardly
matter. Can’t split a photon any further; dear
a word you can’t denote except for its location—: so close,
but—you’ll never know how much I love the sun full
on my face—what I mean is—I love
what can reach me. & have—all the time—what can be
taken
