Only As the Day Is Long

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by Dorianne Laux


  I wouldn’t have done much different.

  I might have woken her, taken her tarnished

  shoulders in my arms, rocked her like a child.

  As it was, I bent over her and kissed her

  on the temple, a curl of her hair caught

  for a moment in the corner of my lips.

  This is my mother I thought, her brain

  sleeping beneath her skull, her heart

  sluggish but still beating, her body

  my first house, the dark horse I rode in on.

  Letter to My Dead Mother

  Dear White Raven, Dear Albino Crow.

  Time to apologize for all the times I devised

  Excuses to hang up the phone.

  Dear Swarm of Summer Sun, Dear Satin Doll.

  You were my panic in a dark house, my mistake,

  My maybe, my heart drain, my worst curse.

  Dear Scientific Fact, Dear Cake Batter Spoon.

  I love you. I love you.

  I knew after I fell for the third time

  I should write you, Dear Mother.

  Dear Pulse, Clobber, Partaker, Cobbler.

  Dear Crossword, Crick, Coffeepot, Catchall.

  You told me when you were 72

  You still felt 25 behind your eyes.

  Dear Underbelly, Bisection, Scimitar, Doge.

  Dear Third Rail. Dear Bandbox. Dear Scapegrace.

  How could I know—I want to go home.

  Don’t leave me alone—Blank as a stone.

  Dear Piano.

  You played for no one, your fingers touched the keys

  With naked intimacy.

  At the science fair we looked in a two-way mirror

  And our eyes merged.

  Dear Wreck. Dear Symphony.

  Dear Omission. Dear Universe.

  Dear Moon-in-the-sky like a toy.

  Dear Reason for my being.

  You were the Emergency Room Angel

  In a gown of light, the injured flocked to you.

  You could not heal them all. Dear Failure.

  No one on earth more hated

  Or loved: your warm hands,

  Your cold heart.

  Dear Mother, I have tried. I think I know now

  What you meant when you said, I’m tired.

  I have no song to sing to your Death Star.

  No wish. Though I kissed your cheek

  And sang for you in the kitchen

  While you stirred the soup, steam

  Licking our faces—crab legs and potatoes—

  Those were the days.

  Acknowledgments

  The Ampersand Review: “Ideas of Heaven”

  The BAKERY: “Evening”

  BOAAT: “Arizona”

  Catamaran Magazine: “Heart of Thorns”

  Cortland Review: “Changeable Weather”

  Gulf Coast: “Ant Farm”

  Oxford American: “Chair,” “Error’s Refuge”

  The Pedestal Magazine: “Ode to Gray”

  Poetry Northwest: “Augusta, Maine, 1951”

  Plume: “Lapse”

  Southern Humanities Review: “Piano with Children”

  Tinhouse: “Before Surgery,” “Death of the Mother”

  The Well Review, Ireland: “Urn”

  Willow Springs: “Crow”

  “Only as the Day Is Long” and “Under Stars,” Academy of American Poets, Poem-A-Day

  “Letter to My Dead Mother,” Montreal International Poetry Prize Anthology, Vehicule Press, UK

  Thank you first and always to Joe for his unwavering faith and faithful attention, to Jill for lending me her ear and support, to my daughter Tristem for her spirit, to Wilton for his encouragement, to Michelle, Michael and Nancy who see me through, to Rosen for his abiding friendship, and to my mother who made me and gave me music.

  Thank you to Michael McGriff for transcribing Awake, and to my students who have inspired me and given me hope for the future of poetry.

  Gratitude to VCCA where some of the new poems were written, NC State for sabbatical time, and my colleagues and students at Pacific University.

  In memory of my teachers, Steve Kowit and Chana Bloch, and my mentor and friend, Philip Levine.

  Notes

  “Lapse” is a “Golden Shovel,” a form Terrance Hayes invented in which one takes a line from a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks and uses each word in the line, in order, as the new poem’s end words.

  “Heart of Thorns” was written about folk singers Anna and Elizabeth.

  “Ode to Gray” is for Sharon Olds.

  “Death of the Mother” uses the end rhymes from John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 7.”

  Index

  Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

  Abschied Symphony, 58

  After Twelve Days of Rain, 28

  Afterlife, 81

  Ant Farm, 138

  Antilamentation, 111

  Aphasia, 30

  Arizona, 154

  As It Is, 39

  Augusta, Maine, 1951, 150

  Awake, 17

  Bakersfield, 1969, 97

  Before Surgery, 128

  Bird, 20

  Cello, 89

  Chair, 152

  Changeable Weather, 133

  Cher, 112

  Crossing, The, 74

  Crow, 144

  Dark Charms, 118

  Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl, 49

  Death of the Mother, 130

  Democracy, 85

  Dog Moon, 114

  Dust, 34

  Each Sound, 36

  Emily Said, 122

  Error’s Refuge, 148

  Evening, 146

  Face Poem, 87

  Facts About the Moon, 72

  Fall, 121

  Family Stories, 60

  Fast Gas, 37

  Fear, 51

  For the Sake of Strangers, 33

  Garden, The, 10

  Ghosts, 7

  Girl in the Doorway, 18

  Heart of Thorns, 140

  Homicide Detective: A Film Noir, 105

  How It Will Happen, When, 50

  Ideas of Heaven, 142

  Juneau Spring, 99

  Kissing, 45

  Lapse, 127

  Last Words, 53

  Late October, 27

  Late-Night TV, 103

  Laundromat, The, 21

  Letter to My Dead Mother, 158

  Life is Beautiful, 66

  Life of Trees, The, 78

  Little Magnolia, 90

  Lost in Costco, 119

  Lovers, The, 43

  Men, 110

  Mick Jagger (World Tour, 2008), 108

  Mine Own Phil Levine, 101

  Moon in the Window, 71

  Mother’s Day, 116

  My Mother’s Colander, 137

  Ode to Gray, 145

  On the Back Porch, 19

  Only as the Day Is Long, 134

  Orgasms of Organisms, The, 65

  Pearl, 61

  Piano with Children, 135

  Quarter to Six, 14

  Ravens of Denali, The, 75

  Savages, 82

  Second Chances, 120

  Secret of Backs, The, 123

  Shipfitter’s Wife, The, 57

  Smoke, 63

  Staff Sgt. Metz, 95

  Starling, 91

  Sunday, 22

  Superglue, 88

  Thief, The, 40

  This Close, 42

  Tooth Fairy, The, 12

  Trying to Raise the Dead, 55

  Twelve, 35

  Two Pictures of My Sister, 3

  Under Stars, 131

  Urn, 153

  Vacation Sex, 83

  What My Father Told Me, 5

  What We Carry, 31

  What’s Broken, 80

  ALSO BY DORIANNE LAUX

  The Book of Men

  Facts About the
Moon

  Smoke

  What We Carry

  Awake

  The Poet’s Companion:

  A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

  (with Kim Addonizio)

  Copyright © 2019, 2011, 2006, 2000, 1994, 1990 by Dorianne Laux

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830

  Book design by JAM Design

  Production manager: Lauren Abbate

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Names: Laux, Dorianne, author.

  Title: Only as the day is long : new and selected poems / Dorianne Laux.

  Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2019] | Includes index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018038026 | ISBN 9780393652338 (hardcover)

  Classification: LCC PS3562.A8455 A6 2019 | DDC 811/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038026

  ISBN: 978-0-39365-234-5 (ebk.)

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

 

 

 


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