by Marge Piercy
Are they passed from mouth to ear
like gossip or dirty jokes? Do they
sprout from underground on damp
mornings like toadstools that form
fairy rings on dewtipped grasses?
No, they slink out of books, they lurk
in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages
turned they rise like the scent of peonies
and infect the brain with their promise.
I want, I will, says the girl and already
she is halfway out the door and down
the street from this neighborhood, this
mortgaged house, this family tight
and constricting as the collar on the next
door dog who howls on his chain all night.
The tao of touch
What magic does touch create
that we crave it so. That babies
do not thrive without it. That
the nurse who cuts tough nails
and sands calluses on the elderly
tells me sometimes men weep
as she rubs lotion on their feet.
Yet the touch of a stranger
the bumping or predatory thrust
in the subway is like a slap.
We long for the familiar, the open
palm of love, its tender fingers.
It is our hands that tamed cats
into pets, not our food.
The widow looks in the mirror
thinking, no one will ever touch
me again, never. Not hold me.
Not caress the softness of my
breasts, my inner thighs, the swell
of my belly. Do I still live
if no one knows my body?
We touch each other so many
ways, in curiosity, in anger,
to command attention, to soothe,
to quiet, to rouse, to cure.
Touch is our first language
and often, our last as the breath
ebbs and a hand closes our eyes.
End of days
Almost always with cats, the end
comes creeping over the two of you—
she stops eating, his back legs
no longer support him, she leans
to your hand and purrs but cannot
rise—sometimes a whimper of pain
although they are stoic. They see
death clearly through hooded eyes.
Then there is the long weepy
trip to the vet, the carrier no
longer necessary, the last time
in your lap. The injection is quick.
Simply they stop breathing
in your arms. You bring them
home to bury in the flower garden,
planting a bush over a deep grave.
That is how I would like to cease,
held in a lover’s arms and quickly
fading to black like an old-fashioned
movie embrace. I hate the white
silent scream of hospitals, the whine
of pain like air-conditioning’s hum.
I want to click the off switch.
And if I can no longer choose
I want someone who loves me
there, not a doctor with forty patients
and his morality to keep me sort
of, kind of alive or sort of undead.
Why are we more rational and kinder
to our pets than to ourselves or our
parents? Death is not the worst
thing; denying it can be.
DATES OF COMPOSITION
The following is a list of poems in this book and the dates they were written, which, as you can see, often is different from the date of book publication.
from STONE, PAPER, KNIFE 1983
A key to common lethal fungi 1980
The common living dirt 1982
Toad dreams 1981
Down at the bottom of things 1981
A story wet as tears 1979
Absolute zero in the brain 1980
Eating my tail 1979
It breaks 1979
What’s that smell in the kitchen? 1980
The weight 1980
Very late July 1980
Mornings in various years 1981
Digging in 1981
The working writer 1980
The back pockets of love 1981
Snow, snow 1982
In which she begs (like everybody else) that love may last 1982
Let us gather at the river 1980
Ashes, ashes, all fall down 1979
from MY MOTHER’S BODY 1985
Putting the good things away 1982
They inhabit me 1983
Unbuttoning 1983
Out of the rubbish 1983
My mother’s body 1983
How grey, how wet, how cold 1984
Taking a hot bath 1984
Sleeping with cats 1984
The place where everything changed 1981
The chuppah 1982
House built of breath 1982
Nailing up the mezuzah 1983
The faithless 1984
And whose creature am I? 1983
Magic mama 1984
Does the light fail us, or do we fail the light? 1984
from AVAILABLE LIGHT 1988
Available light 1986
Joy Road and Livernois 1986
Daughter of the African evolution 1985
The answer to all problems 1985
After the corn moon 1987
Perfect weather 1987
Moon of the mother turtle 1986
Baboons in the perennial bed 1985
Something to look forward to 1985
Litter 1987
The bottom line 1985
Morning love song 1986
Implications of one plus one 1985
Sun-day poacher 1987
Burial by salt 1986
Eat fruit 1985
Dead Waters 1985
The housing project at Drancy 1985
Black Mountain 1985
The ram’s horn sounding 1985
from MARS AND HER CHILDREN 1992
The ark of consequence 1988
The ex in the supermarket 1988
Your eyes recall old fantasies 1989
Getting it back 1990
How the full moon wakes you 1988
The cat’s song 1988
The hunger moon 1991
For Mars and her children returning in March 1988
Sexual selection among birds 1989
Shad blow 1988
Report of the 14th Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group 1991
True romance 1991
Woman in the bushes 1990
Apple sauce for Eve 1991
The Book of Ruth and Naomi 1989
Of the patience called forth by transition 1988
I have always been poor at flirting 1990
It ain’t heavy, it’s my purse 1989
Your father’s fourth heart attack 1989
Up and out 1987
The task never completed 1990
from WHAT ARE BIG GIRLS MADE OF? 1997
What are big girls made of? 1995
Elegy in rock, for Audre Lorde 1992
All systems are up 1992
For two women shot to death in Brookline, Massachusetts 1995
A day in the life 1995
The grey flannel sexual harassment suit 1995
On guard 1991
The thief 1994
Belly good 1991
The flying Jew 1991
My rich uncle, whom I only met three times 1991
Your standard midlife crisis 1993
The visitation 1992
Half vulture, half eagle 1991
The level 1993
The negative ion dance 1991
The voice of the grackle 1994
Salt in the afternoon 1991
Brotherless one: Sun god 1993
B
rotherless two: Palimpsest 1993
Brotherless three: Never good enough 1993
Brotherless four: Liars dance 1993
Brotherless five: Truth as a cloud of moths 1993
Brotherless six: Unconversation 1993
Brotherless seven: Endless end 1993
from EARLY GRRRL 1999
The correct method of worshipping cats 1996
The well preserved man 1997
Nightcrawler 1975
I vow to sleep through it 1995
Midsummer night’s stroll 1987
The name of that country is lonesome 1997
Always unsuitable 1998
from THE ART OF BLESSING THE DAY 1999
The art of blessing the day 1991
Learning to read 1995
Snowflakes, my mother called them 1998
On Shabbat she dances in the candle flame 1997
In the grip of the solstice 1995
Woman in a shoe 1995
Growing up haunted 1994
At the well 1978
For each age, its amulet 1989
Returning to the cemetery in the old Prague ghetto 1990
The fundamental truth 1995
Amidah: on our feet we speak to you 1997
Kaddish 1991
Wellfleet Shabbat 1987
The head of the year 1994
Breadcrumbs 1993
The New Year of the Trees 1982
Charoset 1991
Lamb Shank: Z’roah 1996
Matzoh 1995
Maggid 1991
Coming up on September 1989
Nishmat 1987
from COLORS PASSING THROUGH US 2003
No one came home 2002
Photograph of my mother sitting on the steps 2001
One reason I like opera 1999
My mother gives me her recipe 1998
The good old days at home sweet home 1996
The day my mother died 1999
Love has certain limited powers 1998
Little lights 2001
Gifts that keep on giving 2001
The yellow light 1996
The new era, c. 1946 1997
Winter promises 1998
The gardener’s litany 1997
Eclipse at the solstice 2001
The rain as wine 2000
Taconic at midnight 2001
The equinox rush 1999
Seder with comet 1997
The cameo 2000
Miriam’s cup 2002
Dignity 1999
Old cat crying 1999
Traveling dream 1997
Kamasutra for dummies 2001
The first time I tasted you 1997
Colors passing through us 1998
from THE CROOKED INHERITANCE 2006
Tracks 2002
The crooked inheritance 2005
Talking with my mother 2005
Swear it 2003
Motown, Arsenal of Democracy 2003
Tanks in the streets 2003
The Hollywood haircut 2004
The good, the bad and the inconvenient 2005
Intense 2002
How to make pesto 2002
The moon as cat as peach 1996
August like lint in the lungs 2004
Metamorphosis 2004
Choose a color 2004
Deadlocked wedlock 2004
Money is one of those things 2002
In our name 2003
Bashert 2004
The lived in look 2003
Mated 2004
My grandmother’s song 2002
The birthday of the world 2002
N’eilah 2004
In the sukkah 2005
The full moon of Nisan 2004
Peace in a time of war 2003
The cup of Eliyahu 2002
The wind of saying 2002
Some NEW POEMS
The low road 2007
The curse of Wonder Woman 2007
July Sunday at 10 a.m. 2009
Football for dummies 2008
Murder, unincorporated 2008
The happy man 2007
Collectors 2010
First sown 2010
Away with all that 2010
All that remains 2010
What comes next 2010
Where dreams come from 2010
The tao of touch 2009
End of days 2006
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marge Piercy is the author of eighteen collections of poetry, including Circles on the Water, a selection from her early works. Among her more recent volumes: The Crooked Inheritance; Colors Passing Through Us; The Art of Blessing the Day; What Are Big Girls Made Of?; Mars and Her Children; Available Light; My Mother’s Body; and Stone, Paper, Knife. In 1990 her poetry won the Golden Rose, the oldest poetry award in the country. She is also the author of a memoir, Sleeping with Cats, and seventeen novels, the most recent being Sex Wars. This year PM Press republished Dance the Eagle to Sleep and Vida with new introductions. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into nineteen languages. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and public radio interviewer, with whom she has written a play, a novel and most recently the second edition of So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Fiction and Personal Narrative.
Marge Piercy’s website address is www.margepiercy.com.
She can also be reached on Facebook.
ALSO BY MARGE PIERCY
POETRY
The Crooked Inheritance
Colors Passing Through Us
The Art of Blessing the Day
Early Grrrl
What Are Big Girls Made Of?
Mars and Her Children
Available Light
My Mother’s Body
Stone, Paper, Knife
Circles on the Water (Selected Poems)
The Moon Is Always Female
The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing
Living in the Open
To Be of Use
4-Telling (with Bob Hershon, Emmett Jarrett, and Dick Lourie)
Hard Loving
Breaking Camp
NOVELS
Sex Wars
The Third Child
Three Women
Storm Tide (with Ira Wood)
City of Darkness, City of Light
The Longings of Women
He, She and It
Summer People
Gone to Soldiers
Fly Away Home
Braided Lives
Vida
The High Cost of Living
Woman on the Edge of Time
Small Changes
Dance the Eagle to Sleep
Going Down Fast
OTHER
Pesach for the Rest of Us
So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Writing Fiction and the Personal Narrative (with Ira Wood), 1st & 2nd editions
The Last White Class (Play) (with Ira Wood)
Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir
Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt (Essays)
Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now (Anthology)