Also by Joan I. Siegel from Deerbrook Editions

Hyacinth for the Soul

A Passing

Archaeology

poems

Joan I. Siegel

deer brook edit ions

p u b l i s h e d b y Deerbrook EditionsP.O. Box 542Cumberland, ME 04021www.deerbrookeditions.comwww.issuu.com/deerbrookeditions

f i r s t e d i t i o n© 2017 by Joan I. Siegel

ISBN: 978-0-9975051-8-4

Book design by Jeffrey HasteCover art by Jeffrey Haste

ACK NOW LEDGMENTS

The Bridge “Last Light”

Calyx “My Daughter at 14”

Christian Science Monitor “At the Window”

Commonweal “Arctic Tern” “Doors” “Vermeer: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter”

Cumberland River Review “Spring Poem”

Cutthroat “What the Woman Does After Love”

Dog Blessings “Dog Outside the Grocery”

Ekphrasis “Mary Cassatt: The Bath” “TheKnitting Lesson” “Despair”

Hawaii Pacific Review “Black Cat”

JAMA “Infertility Clinic”

Kalliope “Birth Mother”

Mid-America Poetry Review “Inheritance”

OnEarth “To a Dead Owl on the Roadside”

Poet Lore “After Divorcing” “Andrew Wyeth: Distant Thunder”

Raritan “In the Living Room of the Woman without Daughters”

Wilderness Magazine “How the Tortoise Knew It Was Her Time”

CONTENTS

Tai Chi 11Doors 12The Knitting Lesson 13Last Words 14Inheritance 15Despair 16After Divorcing 17Andrew Wyeth: Distant Thunder 18In the Women’s Room 19My Daughter at 14 20Mary Cassatt: The Bath 21Ida 22Echo 23Spring Poem 24What the Woman Does After Love 25A Muslim Woman Lights Candles 26Eve in Baghdad 27Ancient Gesture 28To the Chinese Mothers 29In the Living Room of the Woman without Daughters 30Infertility Clinic 31Birth Mother 32At the Window 33Fantasia 34Last Light 35Pas de Deux 36Thoughts on a December Afternoon 37Falling Asleep to Bach’s Partitas 38Reversals Inspired by Stevie Smith 39Dancer 40Writing at 5 am 41Telling the Story 42On Your Fifty-Seventh Birthday 43How the Tortoise Knew It Was Her Time 44Listening to Vaughan Williams’s Lark Ascending 45To My Father 46Waiting 47A Walk in the Country at Night 48Interim 49In Late November 50

Animals 51At Sunset 52After the Storm 53When the Dead Stop By 54The Night You Moved Out 55On the Death of a School Friend 56Childhood 57Penelope 58Last Song 59On a Friend’s Suicide in the Pennsylvania Woods 60Dog Outside the Grocery 61Arctic Tern 62Black Cat 63To a Dead Owl on the Roadside 64Monarch in Late Afternoon 65 Archeology 66War Story: The Journey 67Vermeer: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter 68Snapshot: Self-Portrait (1954) 69What I Would Give Up 70

Archaeology

11

Tai Chi

we could be chanting a capella all voices tuned

to the common tone soundlessexcept for each other’s breath we

separate clouds gaze at moon scoop sea push back waves

part wild horse’s mane snakecreeps down golden rooster stands

white crane spreads its wings

12

Doors for Marion Clarke

I don’t like these houseswhere you enter and exit the same door,says the Jamaican woman crampedin August’s blight of a tenementafternoon in Queens.

In Kingston you enter through doors thrownwide open like arms. You movethrough spacious rooms peopledwith generations of brown-legged childrenand uncles at dominoes grandmotherstewing herbs to cure bellyachemother shaking out white linengreat-aunt asleep on bright pillows besidethe window where a hot breezelifts the curtain edgelike a fan.

You move from room to roomslowly at ease gatheringmid-afternoon smells beforeyou exit the back door stepinto the shade of frangipani swellof hibiscus the sea carried lightlyon the air.

13

T he Knitting Lesson

She leans over the girlas my mother leaned over meas I lean over my daughtermy hands teaching her child handspatience to loop the yarn aroundone finger feeling the tensionof yarn palms sweatywith wool holding the needlein one hand guiding the otherto make a stitch a rowof stitches one row after anotherteaching her child handspatience to unravel what must be unraveledreknit what must be reknitmy hands on hers this ritualof women silent exceptfor our murmuring clickingof needles pulling on a ballof yarn a single thread drawnlike a plumb line through all our lives.

14

Last Words

T he moment when the mother . . . sayssome simple word or tells some new story and the daughter sees, for all of her life,what the love between them has been.—Alice McDermott

You need to hear it:the storywords sealed tight as a steamer trunka lifetime unopened, rustingbeneath cellar stairs.

You no longer ask for the keyand lack willto pry it openlift the lid, fingerits contentsbreathe them close to your face.

Insteadbedsideyou pass the hoursempty-handed.

15

Inheritance

She never tolda joke. Her laughter wasbitter as vinegar.

She didn’t hum to herself.She didn’t sing us to sleep.

When we said tell uswhat it was like when youwere youngshe stuffed our ears with sayingsfrom the old country:Don’t laugh too muchfor then you’ll cry

as if that alonecould save us.

16

Despair

What is this private griefunyielding as the wooden tableshe leans her head against? What sealsher eyes like drawn blinds in mid-afternoon? She doesn’t hear the kettlebrewing, rain tapping the window-pane . . . feels only heaviness of both hands weighingon her head, pulling her insideherself as if her body were a housethe spine a staircase she was descendingto some dark cellar.

17

After Divorcing

you want stillnessaround your shoulderslike a shawl

stillnesslike the shadow on the neckof Vermeer’s woman pouring milksound of milk filling the bowlan insect hummingon the windowpane.

Stillnesslike a moth’s sleep.

Stillnessand a chamber for onewhere you dissolvegrow wings.

18

Andrew Wyeth: Distant T hunder

If she is sleeping sunlight filters through the hatcovering her eyes slides downblue shirtsleeves onto her skin seeps into a dreamgreen with grass still as pine trees their shadows beetles clicking cicadasa hermit thrush in the brancheshis song thunder roiling at the bottom of her sleep.

She leaves behind binoculars, the family dog drowsingin weeds, coffee mug, basketof blueberries, cobalt stains on her fingers, mouth sweetwith juice, someone calling her nameher name.When the storm comesshe gathers her things, hurriesto the house. Leaves her bodybehind.

19

In the Women’s Room

her mother says pain will make you beautifulshe soaks the girl’s feet in warm water mulberry root . . . white balsam to soften skinalternative to broth of boiled monkey bones

her mother says this my mother did for meWe call it teng hurting- loving secret language passed from motherto daughter shared knowledge of survival

her mother says tuo tan huan gu cast off old bones to be born again...she clipstoenails . . . crushes toes against the solesprinkles alum . . . massages feet

her mother says you will have perfect three-inch liliesshe binds small toes . . . bends big toe upward . . . sewsbindings shut . . . this will win you a rich husbandyour mother-in-law’s respect

her mother says put on your lotus slippers…beautifulembroidery . . . each bird each flower . . . your husbandwill hold them in his hand . . . his mouth . . . I knowyour feet are on fire . . . put them on . . . walk . . . walk

her mother says I will beat you . . . stand . . . walkback and forth a hundred times . . . do not cry . . . I curseyou . . . women suffer for beauty . . . your feet will be your face . . . walk . . . daughter . . . walk . . .