Rain Upon the Gossip Tree
The window frames the Gossip tree tonight
Dark brick below
A clean gray blue above
It rained for over an hour
The air cooled
I thought of you
The birds sung
My room felt like a rain forest
I think of what I would say to you
I scratch my arm
There are many songs I could sing
Lullabyes and ballads
Sung a thousand times
They are so deep, like ruts
So easy to flow into
They tell a story you would like to be a part of
But I cannot imagine how I have come here
And that is what interests me
The question of being
How I came to be in this body
In this city
What of my past?
-1999
-the room I lived in during grad school
-the
Pacific Ocean
in its particular composition
of molecules
and vectors
in February 2000.
Where are the hours I thought
I would be in so much trouble
If I didn’t finish a paper, or read
Another chapter, or get to class on time
In what way have I escaped?
I look around me.
I am 29 years old, I live in
Philadelphia. I work.
You are 42. You are getting divorced. There is
A house involved. I live in an apartment. You
Have a studio. We sketch on Thursday nights.
I am me. The me who slipped, who wanted to die.
I am me, whose skin burned with self-consciousness,
Who saw pathos in bracelets and ponytails, who
Couldn’t befriend people she wanted to be.
I am her, but I am not her anymore. I am easy,
I make many words, and have a sure voice. I don’t
Ask.
But I don’t write my poems
Like I used to.
The need to confirm
That I have an interior.
My eyes had not adjusted to dreams or light,
Now, they suffuse all, and involve themselves in all.
I spare no personal expense
In entering.
But I spend nothing I do not wish to spend.
And yet, and yet,
Who is this
With arms that wave
With fingers that fly
Who I will not be
In a moment
Or day
Who is in this body
Who will remain in this body
But who will be left behind
In this Sunday evening, May 2007.
-Nina Alvarez
Poem of the Month 