The Dangerous Country of Love and Marriage
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The Dangerous Country of Love and Marriage - Amy Leigh Wicks
Acknowledgements
CREATION STORY
I was alone in the womb
breathing the water of God
through my little gills.
I came shivering—gasping
to the light—my mother
’s face a smear of pink.
To be held against a wall
with her heart on the other side—
this was my first sadness.
I loved the taste
of all my Play-Doh—red
was my favourite. Father
fed me pink grapefruit hearts
on a tiny silver spoon—I tore
each chamber apart with my teeth.
TEND
Get the ones that grow up between the cracks
my mother says, leaning over the lemon balm.
She is a sweating, garden-gloved goddess with strong arms
and I am pulling puny weeds from patio squares
thinking about cloud shapes, and the way that boy
touched my back when he walked past me yesterday.
There are peppers, tomatoes, eggplants heavy on the vine
but I don’t see them. I see dandelions and cement
and I have barely finished two squares when Mom sends me
to make sandwiches. Things are growing but I don’t see them
until fifteen years later in Island Bay. It took the furthest place
from home for me to put on muck boots and feed somebody else’s
chickens in earnest. Now I place the tentacled roots of coriander and spring
onions in a jar like they are holy, with a little water, facing the sun.
PSALM I
You know my father’s name
is John—impossible. Look at
your little sea with whales
smaller than ice cubes!
The sun was cold
before you touched it,
and now it rages love.
Why make almost
gods of girls like me
who hook the fish
and stomp the grass
and eat popcorn
with glistening fingers
in the centre row of the theatre?
SALT AND LIGHT
The first time he stopped by
the house we were tall
as his belt buckle.
I ride toward the Brooklyn Bridge
from Harlem before sunrise.
I want to be clean
so I need to be cold.
When my lungs scream
and sweat stings my eyes,
it is almost over.
There was no coast to run to
so how could we wash?
Cold black morning
then grey
until the sun blisters
the silver buildings
and I am cold, surrounded by water
and metal.
His stomach is a barrel.
We are too small to see his face.
His breathing is rats
chasing a can in an alley.
Every one that falls (an apple
in his yard) is devoured.
I want to be clean
so I need to be cold.
When my lungs scream
and sweat stings my eyes,
it is almost over.
I am clean and full of salt now.
I am an ocean.
LOG NO. 1
There is no blanket of fog. I am not running through the woods today. Last night I was swimming and could hear bullets in the water around me.