"But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you" -- Sharon Olds, in a letter to Laura Bush
Now our worlds have lapsed into silence,
undone by discursive thought.
(like a child weaned from bottled milk)
we unplant trees, shake dirt off
from flustered roots, and sink gently
into sudden insight. Sodden, a hole --
crumpled and broken, by the second,
widening, swallowing, stiffed and stifled.
Soon, coral lips will curl in hurt,
bleached white, left immobile -
uncanny coercion made sour
and heavy, your plus and my minus
burrowing into nothing,
a giant thumb-tacked void.
No longer are our worlds wrapped in fancy ribbon,
stamped and addressed to the same postal code,
then split apart into packages of meaning,
Instead, you are now a paragraph,
flushed left, edited into severe frames,
like fragrance, ambient and indistinct,
at the most inopportune times, stirring --
no less valid (just simply so),
in ending we failed to o'erlap.
Is the simile, " (like a child weaned from bottled milk) " mean to imply lack of appreciation for source of present relationships? I think it means that, since following this, is about how "we unplant trees...", but I'm not entirely sure; but I'm pretty sure that present relationships are being completely destroyed.
Loved the ending:
No longer are our worlds wrapped in fancy ribbon,
stamped and addressed to the same postal code,
then split apart into packages of meaning,
Instead, you are now a paragraph,
flushed left, edited into severe frames,
like fragrance, ambient and indistinct,
at the most inopportune times, stirring --
no less valid (just simply so),
in ending we failed to o'erlap.
It seems to be that once upon a time, the two can talk along the same lines yet hold on to their own ideas, and now it's where both cannot reach an understanding nor even agree to disagree.
PB,
the thing about your poetry is that it takes me a few reads to uncover the meanings and nuances behind the images. but as always the more i read the more i like the special images it conjures in my mind. And your poem's endings are ever impactful. I like the insightful "in ending we fail to overlap".
thanks so much for sharing.
I really liked the images conjured up by some of the descriptions within the poem ... and it took me a few reads to uncover the subtle meaning of ... a couple drifting apart or break up?
you got to read it a few times to really appreciate it, and then realise how good it is. Really.
doses of bitterness, but no so much as to be overpowering.
