Stacy Lynn Mar - Small Boxes Closing

Yesterday is a small box closing
Upon each one of my bones, those warriors.
Primitive, I am a shadow of the woman ancestor
Who sanctioned for me parts of herself.
Small hands, those tiny caterpillars that bloomed
And grew and wrinkled, and held on till time broke.
Bright blue eyes, wishing specters, unwilling participants
To the insubordination and inconsistency of faltering promises.
I am part of that woman-past, I am reminiscent of her girlhood.

Tomorrow is the mother part of me
In the way I plan and perceive, seconds are but a calendar
To the womb that grew, the fetus that kicked, the life that became.
Life was the steel in my backbone, the protrusion of my bellybutton,
And now time consists of the pieces of me spreading.
I am the everything-woman of harvested wishes and
Dreamscape-ideology, and an encumbrance of helplessness
When night pulls his carpet of stars to shine atop my teardrops.
And fear jump-starts my heart like an old motor, rusted but still breathing.

Then there are the times when I run out of words,
My brain stalls like a white palace, it’s lines linear, windows isolated.
These are the nights when I seal those long lost letters,
And pour glue onto the cracking part of myself.
Yes, I am that sensitive and brittle, his words crush me like ceramic.
Some nights I feel old, my heart an ancient acrobat who keeps spinning
Seconds into eternity, and then I think of my grandmother
And her grandmother, and I remember that part of me is the past.
Grandmother, you don’t speak to me so much with a voice anymore,
But you still live, I see your smile every summer
When the rose bush blooms, and I feel your bony hands pushing me along
When I wish to fall into the abyss of nothing and share with you the dust.

Stacy Lynn Mar

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