The Gospel of Breaking

by Jillian Christmas

  to unwind and untie the traps that have caught us

  moving us backwards through car doors held open a tunnel out of Sunday’s fresh-slept sheets

  to meet you in a place of new beginningsbefore

  before

  before

  iii.

  where did you sleep last nighthung on our breath

  before before

  our hopes shook like sandcastlescrumbling

  at the thought of high tidebefore whatever it was that

  illuminated usdied quiet and quivering in the shadow

  of our egos and the echos ofour pride

  I walk these timelines nowa bird on razor wire

  collectingeverywordwehaveeverused

  against each other in desperation or angerI lay

  these things out at my feet

  iv.

  beginning with the most innocent-looking words

  I try to deconstruct the moment

  of breaking

  I arrange the usual suspects by name and crime

  YOU

  hanging heavy on each corner

  glaring accusatorily at

  I

  trust slouching roughragged at its edges

  blamestretched like a one-man bridge

  from end to startthere is no room for all of us here

  green pied peach-faced lovebird

  draw out each feather that separatesone lover’s skin

  from the next displaceforgive

  reclaim forgeterase

  the line that lies wetheavy in the sand between them

  I am willing can make this sacrificego without

  armour of featherguard of tongue or sword

  I would lie down beside youin Sunday’s sheets

  without weapon without wordstretch myself

  on timelines that go everywhereand nowhere except

  to loop back to your door

  love you into remembering what forgetfulness is for

  no one of us alone

  The good thing about death

  is not the leaving not the

  hollowing out or the loss

  it is the noticing that happens

  after/ content patience in winding

  conversations/ new found attention

  paid to every subsequent goodbye

  this magnificent capacity for forgiveness stretching its arms

  inside my belly/ the quiet kitchen table conversations

  and the constant absentminded interlacing of fingers

  funerals can make perfectly late stages/ stories might come alive

  in bursts of laughter or the nervous wringing of hands

  they seep out unexpected/ the details that make a person that tell the big

  secret

  no one of us alone can know

  will you write it?

  the story that burrowed and bristledunder your young skin

  the painthat crumples your face and pulls the curtains tight

  the joy that spills from smirking lips in the middle of the night

  will it move your pen to write

  when all the world is sour broke and aching could you write it

  still?

  it was her voice in my ear then, and even here, a smiling sound

  that saidI bet you couldI bet you will

  called me sweet childin the corners of my head

  where no one else could find me, I wrote for herfor her

  picked up my pen to carve the fear out of my own throat

  she taught me to reshape a shame I learned I never had to own

  and even now, when I open my mouth to scream when I stare

  into the mirror slack-jawedand cannot make a sound

  I hear her voice even now

  will you say it, are you brave enough to let yourself break for it

  just for the sake of speaking itwill you weep for it

  I used to curl my face into miss maya’s books bury my head in

  my grandmother’s lap make fortress from the underside of

  a school desk all the places I could find to hideseeking out

  the silence deep enough to coax my voice from its quickening

  sandsuntether my tongue from its pride

  and thereI found myself liberated in her pagesshaken

  until all my bells and diamonds fell out, beckoned to the stage

  by the sage wisdom of a mother who never even knew my face

  will you write it, when it’s hardest could you be your own

  saving grace your sweet mouth is not a casket let it be a seed

  and I nurture myself within her soil as her voice plays on

  repeat

  now it echoes from the white house to the corners of the street

  from the gala dinners to the hotel rooms where the working

  girls like her, would meet will you write it sit a while and let

  your voice loosen the fisted hands of every clock do not

  hold your words tight remember, first, that love is not a lock

  it is a liberating thing

  open up your mouth sweet child your voice has always been

  here always worthy always urgent open up your mouth

  and sing

  i had to choose

  the summer my body broke

  i learned to hate

  and then love

  and then hate

  and then need

  my own company

  yousuddenlysohardtoreach

  became a mountain

  i could no longer climb

  impossible

  to rouse the energy to crawl to the bathroom

  and your feetat the same time

  (the woman is made of eyes and she got a tornado running up her spine)

  woken by my alarm, 6:30 a.m. just early enough to beat mommy to the kitchen. I rise and dress. meet her making her way through the hallway. catch the raw edge of a woman blowing through the corridors of a house she built from scratch, knows by touch. cooking in her kitchen, beneath her ever-present gaze I find myself a little worried for the day that mommy becomes like the wind, scoops up her whole singing being and ascends into the ether.

  moving through my house like a cool breeze just over my shoulder, what will she think about the way I clean my kitchen, cook my meat, speak my own tongue, stitch my hems, fuck my lovers? what lessons will she lay for me to find in the heat of fresh pepper seeds, or the steady slope of my woman’s neck?

  I study mommy’s face, the fragile ringed cloth of it, her hands the accountants of so much time

  sometimes when you talk to me, is not me, but an angel you speak with

  I know, mommy, of course I know.

  things I can do

  for Sylvia

  I can brush your hair, squeeze

  this tube of medicated moisture

  onto green sponge

  and through your open mouth.

  I can run my oiled fingers

  across your dried lips,

  hold your hand, I can still hold

  your hands. I can file and paint

  your nails same as always, I can

  play you all the sad songs I know

  on ukulele. I surprise myself,

  I can pray

  to a god I don’t remember kindly.

  I can cry sometimes. I can check

  with the nurses:

  Is it time for medicine?

  Is it time? It is time for medicine.

  I can read to you from a book

  that I will not finish once you

  are gone. I can sit quietly in a room

  with family that has not

  felt like family for so long,

  since they piece-by-pieced you years

  too early. I can tell

  myself and my mother that we are

  all here because we love. I can try

  to make myself believe.

  I can brush your hair, put on

  your f
avourite music, squeeze this tube

  of medicated

  moisture onto green sponge. I can

  check if you are breathing. I can call

  the nurse: It is time

  for medicine. I can phone

  with an update. I can cry, can argue

  over brands of morphine.

  when no one else is around I can

  smoke, quickly. I can rush back,

  find you breathing. Run my oiled finger

  across your lips, I can wash your face.

  move a warm cloth over your hands

  and rub ponds into the whisper-thin

  creases of you. I can watch and wince

  as nurses change

  another diaper, I can cry, I can

  wait, I can kiss your fingers.

  I can thank and thank

  and thank. I can say goodbye

  into your ear, knowing that it is good.

  I can drive to the airport. I can fly home,

  I can hear your voice.

  I can hear your voice.

  northern light

  Stepping off the plane in whitehorse

  the last thing I expect to feel is home

  not quite alone but close enough

  herein this great black north

  as we driveaway from the airport

  chris points out the window

  that’s antoinette’s Caribbean food

  if you’re feeling in need of a pick-me-up

  she’s from tobago

  and I’m not sure if he knows

  it’s the same island that bred these bones,

  that just the song of its nameis home

  what strange things are we creatures

  of the diasporatreasures

  of the caribbean sea,

  knocking our knees together in parkas

  teeth chattering

  where the thin treesstretch

  high the heavens

  to seek the queerest light

  what strange escapes have we made

  to want to call this placehome

  and I doI do

  feel the ghosts of women not unlike us

  whose resilienceand fortitude

  pulled more than goldand dust and

  opportunityfrom this blistering cold

  I am told the alaska highway

  was an engineering feat

  constructed under the doubtand

  bloody weight of jim crow

  what strange things are wethat we

  see a barrierbut build a road

  I know this to be true

  there is not always a way around

  but I can promise you a way through if

  we can remember both the haunted

  and the hunters

  if we can be courageous enough to dig

  into the depths of humane capabilities

  stretch our capacities for toleranceand love

  how strange and brave are we

  it’s winter here yet it feels like everywhere

  the world is turning coldand stark

  oh, nation

  who will birth this light

  work build nurturefight

  for a place we can all call home

  regardless of difference

  celebrate our place in this shared story

  this fierce resistance

  some thinkthe dark is full of terrors

  because they cannot see

  what it concealsor perhaps

  they do not know that the dark itself is

  a precious giftand we

  strange creatures of the shimmering

  northcan be the light that it reveals

  monday morning made delicious

  here there is a poem words where there were none

  a poem that did not exist before yesterday

  swallowed the hard truth of another sun a near miss

  before tonight and tomorrow’s first kiss

  before the mess of this light began to bleed bright

  over blinking horizon before I was here fiendishly writing

  there was a deal between dark hours and the weary who walk them

  a cost for long slow moments that unravel in silence thick

  come quick the tab is running the taxman is coming

  and when day breaks in to collect I want my face to reflect

  life’s light like a beacon I want a reason to open palms

  embalmed with ethereal dreams made tangible like demons

  in dark corners I want to show you something hard and lovely

  and sayPsssssssst! I made this for you today

  I want to press your skin against the sun tell you not to run

  while I detonate hand grenades in the cracks between the spaces

  that make your scared face turn sacred and then I want to stop

  the night from fleeting because isn’t it amazing how little sleep it takes

  to keep breathing I want to dream, all day I want to play

  while other’s minutes are spent sleeping LOOK keep reading

  this is where I collected every single breath we shared replayed

  the nicotine nervous steps of our dancing counted and caught

  back-glances at the ramshackle-romancing of our quiet whispers

  and awakenings and pretendings see

  I captured every teary smile like tonic for the new worries

  tomorrow will surely bring perhaps that is a surly thing to say

  perhaps this is distastefully fictitious but day is beating down my door

  tossing threats across my floor and calling you delicious

  I am tired this much is true and sleep she is a fair-weather friend

  and black sky blusters into blue and my thoughts go on and on

  without an end and sun is rising like flare through a fog and everything

  is quiet and everything is hard and you are lovely and soon I will be too

  and good morning I made this for you

  but have you tried

  have you

  wedded

  yourself

  to the edge

  of a knife

  braided

  your names

  together

  like a promise

  wrung your

  sweet voice

  until all of

  the valleys

  echo echo

  hollow

  have you

  swum beneath

  possibility

  carried

  the cross of

  an ending

  found

  the bottom

  of your own

  seeking

  drunk the

  false venom

  of delight

  climbed

  back up

  the drain

  made your

  way out

  dripped in

  the sacred

  filthy as

  all human

  and alive

  what’s been keeping you up at night

  I do not need to tell you that

  you are enough

  you already know

  that everything you are

  is all you need

  even though the weight

  of this world might sometimes

  bring you down to your knees

  you must believe

  you must believe

  the poet rumi once said

  what do you know of your

  yet-undiscovered beauty

  one of these days you will rise

  from within yourself like a sun

  I offer you these words

  from my own heart lips and tongue

  if you look around you/ and everything

  is burning/ licked in flames up-reaching

  like a funeral pyre

  check if you are breathing

  If you are it stands to reason

  perhaps you’re not t
he kindling you’re the fire

  indigo medicine

  dreamed you were here, cloaked

  in a quiet face that looked

  nothing like sadness

  every passing second is another ending

  maybe joni mitchellis a prophet

  or a witchI scarred a record of hers once

  you know the onea kind of premonition

  one day I will say goodbye so hard that my whole

  body will blossominto a field of poppies

  a single iris drippingfrom each of my eyes

  you could be proudI said noagain today

  cut the chordI used to sing your name

  shattered our tune into a thousand tiny bells

  anddanced toward some doorway

  this bruised sea I’ve crossedit is the picture of

  our great big endingspitting image of a falling

  red cedarpiling her body between yours

  and minekickinga heel against the door as

  we stumble wilted

  fog a breath against my windowfingerso long

  into the misty film separating us go away

  again

  I promise youthere is always something good

  to walk away fromsweeter still once you’ve left

  you knowthe freedomis exquisite

  the bike poem

  There are two types of people in the world

  those with a moral compass and the type

  of motherfucker who would steal my bike

  from my house/ while I am sick in bed with the flu

  so I address this to you/ the douche-canoe

  who will likely never understand the significance

  of the electric jon sticker that straddled the

  crossbar of my beloved steedthough

  I pray it is perpetually kicking you in the crotch

  seriouslywhat kind of asshat steals a sick person’s

  bikeI imagine you are some depraved creature the likes

  of which would make hunter s. thompson’s skin crawl

  I assume you have no parents at all/ but then I picture you

  cowering in the womb of your mother’s basement

  masturbating to the classic bike poetry of johnny macrae

  using the tears of the bikeless as lube

  and I want you to know that I will never

  stop hunting you and I swear on lance armstrong’s

  good nut that when I find you

  I will have my revenge

  (bright embroidered tablecloth, cutlass, mirror)

  Back at the house and just rising from a small rest, I begin to set myself to the task of laundry. mommy has a small machine that wants a life, long as her, and so I wash my clothes in the old way. Carrying them down to mommy’s basin, there I become accustomed to the feel of the concrete washboard against my hands, the ringing of the cloth, the crisp smell of the blue bar soap.