Three Poems by Lisa Lewis

Three Poems:Lisa Lewis

Long flood-morning wait for hotel room

you heard yourself saying you didn’t want to be there you didn’t want to be anywhere and where you were was a wet parking lot not raining now but before and later the sleek black

paint on asphalt like asphalt painted on a painting of asphalt in a wet black parking lot a bridge spanning a wet parking lot before the paint and the bridge would be dry already waiting for hours in the sun in another state another hotel parking lot and another truck running the headache of monoxide equals how many decibels how many truckers wearing how many caps and sunglasses now it took too long to finish talking about the storm nobody but you noticed the long rain before the eyes averted you’d have to replace what you lost you’d have to get pretty aggressive with the insurance adjustor

you’d have to interrupt her sick weekend with the root canal you’d show up with your bags and your long list

you will hear from friends that this kind of thing happens to everybody though usually it’s a fire

and the belongings are rushed out into dumpsters or trucks and the cataloging is done by hand

the labels pasted across the boxes you will open again and breathe in to test the air

it is likely to be fouled or even watery dark it is likely to be the dream from which you must wake

before everything inside it drowns how many hands reaching into stinking water how many soaking books shirts shoes chairs days past and future

Poem Concerning Collapse and Forbearance

There is fear of the authorities and fear of authority. There is turning people in to the authorities. There is narrative inscribed in a vernacular the authorities do not consider credible.

There is falling silent in the face of confusion. There is a face that in the first hour appears angry and in the second placid as a vase with a vine in its belly. There is a future unsure of duration in safety.

There is a woman drowning in the pit of a swimming pool. We discuss this image’s source in popular culture, but we also claim it describes us after we have been turned in to the authorities. Sometimes we pretend to be afraid when we’re not. We move quickly through genres, we tell others to slow down. We fear their authority. We will develop the authority of darkened teeth and a limp. We will grow into the authority of that haircut. It’s prepared to be cold, with a razor. It veers close to crucial structures of the throat. There is a badge protecting the parts you can’t see. What are we so afraid of? None of us has authority.

We gave it away when we took it up, we were too busy to enforce our authority. Authority needs work to do. Authority becomes a work of enforcing authority. Nothing backs it. A hammock swings between trees.

LISA LEWIS

Nothing holds it. The air beneath is shaped like branches. Fall from the hammock, your authority impaled on air shaped archly like branches. Open the letter you received from a local authority. The watermark rises

like a notary embossing. We take such signs to indicate what we can’t open. No door, no sealed lid to mason jar, no blade gouging the top of the tomato can with sludge. Then the police come. They are on a secret mission.

It’s in their hands. It dangles from their belts. They think no one will know what they plan to do.

Post-Flood Poem

when you speak the small bones in your voice shake like a snake in a velvet hood there are crowds in your dream and the women wear bracelets that clamp tight the snapping jaws of the jeweled turtle or the frozen arm of a lost warrior

there was a door painted the cusp of midnight and you stood behind it waiting that was the right thing to do it had always been right you were lied to by the talkers the chatterers the dreary tall intentional ones their explanations

rattled like voice bones like the beauty that makes you reach and regret before you snatch back alive men begging for amulets men begging for broken glasses men begging for noise everything they say is shattered toys readily mended and handed over to get this room cleared for walking cleared for moving away when you return to your cottage the new lights glitter like scratched corneas oh the wincing and the sheer reach of the adventurous dyes the workers used to create the illusion of flying backwards in time to the flattened bed in the woods

where the deer sleep and give birth to get the future rushing again like an opossum scaling a perpendicular trunk or an expanse of lead pipe you are going to stop talking

and no one will be able to cut through the silence no matter the tool or weapon silence will hold its living courage in its arms what are the arms of silence shaped to grasp what corners or diameter there have been many floods many displacements you are the lucky one you have money and tall chairs remember the frightened men and their warnings but you came out when you wanted air not a husband darkness not a party museums not basements grassy inclines not stolen cars with men driving

pots and pans the residents are not allowed to touch cans of paint carpenters open and stir white dust rags must brush away dancing shoes your brother’s feet do not fit where did he get the idea that his games were managed by rightful rules so many mistakes in such a short night you made sure it lasted only an hour you cut a moon in the door and the moon came in you cut a door in the moon and the light turned green and poured down like moonlight the moisture of dead

leaves where did the judges get the idea that you should talk about leaves in their presence this is the last time you will speak and they should be listening but where are the little bones fitting together and the charms on the bracelets that know their lines they are arranged on the stage where they will begin their serious promenade you climb onto your chair you pull up your knees to rest your feet they are large they are ready to walk and the men are driving away without their directions as usual you were right all along and you are wearing jewels now and the jewels are leftover nails from building and eyes from looking down and trophies from lost games and horses you couldn’t ride and words you strained to sing and broken notes that the audience couldn’t hear and why did anyone think it was the right question and why did you answer when you could’ve looked the other way down the pipe what’s coming up this time what will you see out the little window do not hang a curtain there just keep standing at the sink and rubbing your hands together taste the thin steam pour broth into cups the sisters will go hungry but you will dine

in the silence you tend so it grows across the wild meadow if there is such a thing

where the horses you gave away do not remember you and in that way free you like the kings you’ve forgotten but they are not free they are not free they are talking about you and you know what they’re saying and you won’t let them be wrong again

if you have to carry the train of crowns to the river you will not tell the story if the burned fur torn from gowns trips you up you will right yourself and push forward as if your hands were wheels as if your voice were pure as dark water