Three Poems: Bethany Schultz Hurst
First miracle
Blessed are the jugs of water my touch turned to wine. Blessed is my mom was there but left before I truly screwed the pooch. Blessed is my hour had not yet come. Blessed the lilies. The hydrangea. My botched maid-of-honor speech, that incomprehensible list of inside jokes. Blessed, how I kept toasting. Peonies, baby’s breath, delphinium, double-fisting, puke-and-rally, hair-of-the-dog next day. Blessed the amiable groomsman backing away from my hotel room where I was sobbing later. Blessed is I totally get it. Blessed is who signed up for this? The tulips. Daisies, asters. Blessed is I was already a disaster at the ceremony’s start, talking shit beside the videographer’s hot mic as flower petals scattered. Blessed the merciful: the rewinding, the recording over. Blessed is actually that was a different wedding, but blessed that one, too, the one with all the orchids. Blessed all the dresses I had to wear that summer: long, chiffon, and each a slightly different shade of yellow. Blessed is how I wished to be slightly different in them. More blessed, I believed, would be someone not so much.
BETHANY SCHULTZ HURST
Blessed all the roses I had to clutch. Blessed is of course I couldn’t handle such abundance: so much to have and hold until it turns to dust? Blessed are those who have had enough. The poor flower girl whose part was scrubbed. The terrible marriage that didn’t last. For that I keep raising my overflowing glass.
Miracle of Multiplication
Remember years ago when I oooooed at a bunny hopping in the shopping mall median and then there were two and then twenty-two? their shiny leporine eyes I am telling
you this Lord because I was sore afraid something was out of balance is that the same mall I saw ablaze on the news last summer when the wildfire trespassed into the city? this morning my son’s shoes are still sloshing with river water leaving footprints like disappearing ink last night Lord after I baked the trout he caught with lemon I could divide its entire skeleton from its flesh dangle it from my pinched fingers
and still our mouths were filled with tiny bones Remember the poster I first saw at the dentist I think? when I was a girl getting my teeth scraped of plaque how that guy was so pissed when he looked back at the beach and saw only one set of prints there must be other places Lord from which I can gather
wisdom at the strip malls that haven’t burned down yet there are rows upon rows of mattresses I can recline into our old California King done in by the impression of my body like some ghost is lying there and won’t roll over on memory foam latex pillowtop
I can think of nothing but the bored salesmen forced to watch my poor performance of sleep I can’t
decide if shoes-on are worse than bare feet so I kind of make them hover Lord
tell me is this comfort: hands clasped to chest the immense warehouse ceiling looming above the promise that motion can be so isolated we wouldn’t even know if someone was getting up or lying down to rest beside us
BETHANY SCHULTZ HURST
For now we see through a glass
In those days when you stayed home sick with low-grade fever, the mornings were all glitzy game show. Two worlds were before you. In one, you’d just learned a nestling—a tiny pink lump—could suddenly peep up and become a giant mouth. Its naked want almost comical except you knew that it was starving.
In the TV’s bright interior world, the host had the prettier contestants kiss him, seemed annoyed by less attractive guests. It was a miracle each time someone in their ordinary clothes was called to come on down, to cross over onto the stage.
In your world, you remembered how the nestling’s beak unhinged under the shadow of your hand, how darkness signified a provider winging over. How the showcase models glistened above the prizes, blender, jet ski, grandfather clock, glossy
mouths above their liquid gowns. The river had been glimmering. You knew you shouldn’t
have kept the nestling, but when it plopped into the water, could you let the cold current
pull it down? There was no way to reach back up to its nest beneath the bridge, so you fished it
out. Made your sweatshirt a swaddle. The host, you observed, had sculpted, snowy hair
like your favorite pastor who’d been let go for blowing church funds at the casinos. His absence
on Sundays now conspicuous. In one game on the show you had to guess the cost
of ordinary things. You didn’t really know. You were a child. You’d been so careful
with the dropper in the nestling’s beak but it didn’t matter. You’d crushed up bugs
to feed it. The host acted sympathetic as he moved the losers toward the curtain.
Where did they go, after—back to their normal seats? After church your mother had asked to see where you had buried it and though you thought you’d dug and dug
down low, the corner of the orange shoebox lid poked up through the dirt. Like the morning
you slipped your hand beneath your pillow but your tooth was still there. Wasn’t it
supposed to be gone now, replaced with something shining? During commercial breaks
injury lawyers flashed a giant number you could call. They said suffering deserved some compensation. Are not two sparrows worth a penny? But it was a swallow. Your stomach
a stone. The wooden cross at church on Easter had been draped in white cloth. Now you imagined
a spokesmodel pulling it off to reveal some prize underneath. In fever, you saw a world where
your hands dripped with sparkling water even if the bird was gone.
