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MARYCLAIRE WELLINGER Poet & Painter
Iris, Messenger to the Gods:
A Melologue of Laments, Blessings and Instructions
by Iris, Daughter of Zeus
to the Women of the Halfway House
by Maryclaire Wellinger
Song 1. If I could
If I could
wrap you in a sari
of pink and orange silk
cool to the skin
so you walk with grace
through that vacant building
that dark space
where your father was knifed
in the back when he
won the card game,
and his best friend
came and told your mother
and your love froze
there at age 11 when your eyes
grew round to conceal
your fear and rage.
If I could rock you
in a sweet cocoon of song
with mandolin
so you sleep beyond the days
of the siren and the lights
when men come
with hypos in black bags to gather
your mother up like laundry,
strap her to
a canvas sling, slide her into
their white truck and ride off
through the night haze.
For years to come,
grief
slurrs your speech,
rolling off the tongue
on breaths of gin,
grief
rocks your body
whipped by your lover's belt,
runs to Vegas to Oakland
and back to Boston,
grief
shoots a needle
through your skin,
oak-leaf brown
and oak-leaf thin.
Song 2. The Scar
Sitting in the chair
on the torn rush seat
before the window
with your profile in relief
you turn your head
left cheekbone streaked with sun
streaming in
above the pumpkin on the sill,
your lips colored plum
opening to your tongue
with its shy speech.
Only the obvious scar
slipping from earlobe to chin
is revealed,
its white etch-mark
repeating the imperfect arc,
the inner edge
to the flawed crescent
of the moon
floating in the sky
above your head,
white and smooth and hard
like a shard of pottery
broken in the kiln
at its first firing.
Song 3. I Saw My Sister
I saw my sister
hanging on the corner
with two men, addicts,
looking thin and sick,
shivering in a man's
jacket of red leather,
shifting from one foot to another,
restless her sneakers
silently slapping the pavement.
I saw my sister
from far away at first,
like I have witnessed
a sunburst from deep space,
her body a narrow band
of vibrant light
erupting along a jagged edge
of flame radiating ) ) )
into emptiness.
I saw my sister
up close when I brushed
by on the sidewalk,
a speedball of coke and heroin
spinning in her blood,
orbiting her heart
straining on its tilted axis,
her brain burning slowly
like a young forest,
her eyes singed red
as she stood at the fire's periphery
and I was visible, she could see me:
"Who are you?" she said,
her words glowing weakly
like embers dying, her words drifting
towards me on the breath of ringed planets,
her words disappearing, into the cold air.
Song 4. Emerging
Thrown from clay
by the Creator's own hand
the intended form
explodes in darkness.
Out of that chaos
in the combusting heat
you are reborn
from the dust of particles deglazed,
a peculiar work of unique beauty.
And now
as if a weighty iron door
were flung open
you emerge
into the late October light.
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