Last post for a week

The Jar - Susan Minot (From "Poems; 4am)
I took the man out of my jar
I thought, That's no place for him to be.
That's no man to be in my jar.
I took him out
and the song went out of me.
And the tree trunks, hit by the rising sun
and the shape of his teeth
left.
It was for my own good that I took him out, you see
[After a looting, after a theft]
He was an insult to my affections.
I took him out and
his voice was gone,
and every sound changed but one-
the beating sound kept beating on

At first I was relieved.
I took him out and took out pain.
I thought, My jar will be ready for
a new set of teeth.
The slowly that drained out, too:
the relief.

So there it sat, my jar on a sill
with nothing to sing about. Quiet, still.
A jar on a blank page, a jar on a roof
with nothing inside it and nothing to prove.

So I launched it. Out to sea.
A jar set adrifting, a jar on a wave.
A jar on the ocean, far from the shore.
Miraculous. Buoyant. Able to float.
but useless and empty and floating by rote.

No sound but the little tin pecks
of the waves on the glass.
My jar bobbed further and further
out to sea
till the water grew so large
and silent around it
that it was lost to me.

Hey bright eyes.
If I could have your heart,
[as you so suggest]
I would;
but for now, I'll settle for your head on a platter.
You're my paper weight.
You make me want to write
You make me feel unnervingly safe.
And now I fear I've ruined everything.
When I act on impulse,
when my temper gets the worst of me.
When I open my mouth
or close my phone.

[Sometimes I wish I could read your mind - what an unfair advantage that would be.]
And if you fly away, never to come back again, I wonder if you'll think of me.
Will you see my face in coffee shop windows,
on the bus, in the park;
my hair my nose my arms my inkstainedfingers
will you catch glimpses?
Seeing a young women writing on a notepad,
or bending down to pick dandelions?
A curly haired lady striking a match? An I♥NY shirt?
A book of poetry, a cherry stem;
will you think of me?

Will you think of me
even half as much
as I'll think of you?

Absence leads a heart to wander.
And though I, which withstand the
change of days, stay,
you shift and break and scatter.
What shall I do my dear?
Chase and gather the fragments of you,
as I know that is what you wish.
I suppose I'm to put those pieces back together too?
I suppose too, that I shall do so without complain.
It's who I am.
And it's not who you want.

May 9th, o9

Packing light.
I want to leave everything behind me.
Can't let you slip into my suitcase somehow, can't let you follow me out
Toss a shirt in- I remember how you liked it, fingering the fabric - toss it back out.
[I've spent all my years in believin' you, but I just can't get no relief]
I can't even decide if I should put my own broken pieces in.

I lost the rhythm of this place.
It's continuing, I feel the pulse,
but I can't seem to keep up myself,
I can't find the beat.
[Should I change lotions I wonder? I recall who you would smile when you caught the scent of this one]
I look forward to seeing and being with the ocean salt, once again.
Maybe if I sleep with my window open, I won't think of you
or dream of him.

Do you even like the sea? The island? The markets, the trees, the way the sun and rain are one?
Did you even know it's a piece of me, or that the air lets me sleep easier than here?

My Travel Books:
Poems; 4am - Susan Minot
Selected Poems - Margaret Atwood
Anne of Green Gables - L.M.Montgomery
In Arabian Nights, A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams - Tahir Shah
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke