And a short section from "Throne."
Chiricú was kind enough to publish
seven sections of the poem.
It's a scholarly journal, but they also publish poems,
and it's a wonderful journal, so I recommend it.
Maybe you just need to know that my husband and I had a house
fire sometime back.
Begin again: the garden survived the fire but not the months
after.
The house was a husk of an arc overlooking the last marigolds.
Papery, dissonant in wind.
The neighbors downstairs, of course, long gone.
Despair is an afterlife, too.
House made of cardboard and light bulbs and mirrors.
House of dying insects and smoke and flood.
Where is your angel?
Throne like seed among stones and birds,
Buried in a shallow grave.
Snuffed out, infant flame.
If only visible things
Would have more to say about demise,
I might not ask what this dry shuddering light
Has to do with me now, as I cross the yard.
As if the dryness is meant to be crossed.
As if the light shudders and shudders for my sake.
Should I deadhead the flowers?
Should I close them into a chest?
Crumble their seeds into beds, and wind, and wait?
And if I am tired of the garden.
Too tired to dress it and keep it,
Should I long after what was, perhaps,
To have arrived on earth.
If only human enough, I'd seen it into completion.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]