The Color of Broken Hearts

 —Poetry by Eileen Patterson, Cudahy, WI
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

MOVING

into my dream, brown-skinned
boxes, big and small, surround me.
I own this white siding, the green trim.

In the backyard, two lilac trees
wait for Spring. They ache to burst in
bloom, to show me colors, to fill my nostrils
with purple scent.  

The lilacs picked for mother
came from other backyards.    
Their branches overhanging fences
begging us to take them.
We snatched them like thieves.
Mother put the stolen goods on her kitchen
table, in large jars or old vases, castoff
treasures from other homes.
Nothing was ever new.

But in Spring the purple blooms will be mine.
I can pick them till my fingers bleed.

****

My lover’s eyes filled with hope, this man
who fathered my child thought the move
a fresh start, another new beginning
but I knocked him to his knees saying,
 

"You can leave now.”

sounding light, full of mischief but we both knew
the raw-edged truth of it all.
I wanted him gone.
The relationship broken.
We seesawed back and forth into each other's lives.
The goddess cocaine was his passion
and the poems in me, breathless.

But there was hope, excitement in his eyes

until my mouth opened, and I tasted his raw skin.

 

 

 

 

MOURNING MOUNT SINAI

Night. I am marooned


on this quiet brooding island.


"Who are you?" I ask,
as Night Mother floats in the room.


"I am your night nurse,"


she replies.


How comforting, I think.


Will you sing me a lullaby


when I can't go to sleep?



 

Her white jowls and the belly


of her arms move in sync,


as she writes on her chart


her voice crackling out


rules.


"Breakfast is at six.


You can keep to your


room if you choose.


Group is at eight


and is required."


When do I weave baskets?

I ask quietly while Night Mother


maps out the hours of my life


as I stand on the cold floor


and decay. The memories weigh me


to the ground chained in the past,
and uninvited voices dance in my head.



 

Morning. I hear the chatter


of the Mothers. The slapping


and clanking of the tray

s
as the cart moves from room to room.


The voice in the hall yells:


"Somebody? I am throwing up


my life here. Won't someone help me


clean up this mess?"


Won't she be proud, I think.


This is what they want


for us to toss out our lives,


our mouths foaming like wild dogs.


Afternoon. Men and women.


Some in white armor, some in steel


suits. Impressed with their degrees


and terminology. Firing their


smiles like drug-filled spears.


Our shadows engraved on the walls


as we march to their tune and eat


their institutional green beans


and mashed potatoes.


Here on this burned-out island


the walking flesh move but don't talk.
The sedatives feed on our brains.
And the steel suit wants to bore a hole
through my mind to know what memories
I hide. But I say nothing. I crawl back
in a corner where the walking flesh
live.



 

Night. There are no lights


in the place. Only the light


from the fireflies they keep


in the jar. Their wings flickering


wildly against the glass


making the smallest of sounds.


The memories weigh me


to the ground on the night


I feel the glass break


inside me.

 

 

 

 

GROUP

We sit on the couch


like birds nesting


keeping secrets and lies


like delicate eggs.


Since I lack an identity


myself, I sit with the stand-up


man, the one with the golden


tooth and forbidden black skin,


we coo and peck at one another


and he tells me how life is for him.

 



There are six or eight or


ten of us depending on


the mood of our psyches


this morning.



 

The mute woman who sleepwalks


and follows the doctor in the hall


with the need of a breast-


feeding child. He pats her


on the head like a father.



 

The fat woman who is caught


inside the cobwebs of her fat,


and sits like a gravestone


with hands deep in her thighs


because her vagina suffers the memory


of her father and two brothers.



 

The drug addict who moans


and groans with his skeleton bones


and fondles his knife at lunch


rocking to some music


or emotion


or high


in his mind.


Clutching his stomach holding his pain,


as if giving birth to reality.



 

The woman who sits in a chair


with papers and pen and writes out


our lives is normal.


Her hair is long like


Rapunzel's, nails wing-tipped


like angels, painted blue


and jeweled with black stars.


They move with the grace


of a mime. We tell her lies


or truths or whatever she wants.



 

We bare ourselves to this long


blond stranger as if she knew


what the answers would be


to our questions, if we had them


or knew them.

 



I think she should know


something, at least the


price and place where her


manicure was done.



 

Our eyes angry as mad gods


not knowing or caring we throw out


our lives our words spill
on the table.

 

 

 

 

NINE DAYS

There was no sunlight. I couldn’t bear the harsh
reality of all the normal
out beyond the doorstep. He fell into my agora-
phobic sea, and I dragged him
down to murky waters. Seaweed everywhere.
He sacrificed himself to this unholy life and I was
greedy for everything,
his voice, his touch. I gave him my breath and he
took it.

This was not forever. Forever is too heavy for a
skeleton to carry.
He loved me, unexpectedly he said. I liked being
unexpected like a dark
figure coming out from the corner of his eye.

At night we entered the world of others. We co-
cooned ourselves at the edge of the War Memorial,
that structure of steel and glass overlooking Lake
Michigan. We kept our voices small like children
alone in the dark.
 
I looked at the sky the color of blueberry, dark and
sweet.
And right there I was about to step off the edge of
the world.

He looked back before leaving our love story,
willing me to form the words to hold him back. But
that was the world of movies and happy endings. I
never believed in that magic.

The waves cuffed the beach gently. There was no
breeze and the moon hung full in the sky, solid
and white,
the color of skull and bone,
the color of sorrow,
of broken hearts.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

―Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Eileen Patterson for her fine poetry today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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