THE RADIANT
If the soul has any weight,
is it heavier than light?
And: when does it cross the threshold?—
entering the body—flesh threshold
to that candle-cradle of water & light
that is also a meshed net, weight
that enwraps the soul’s wing-weight
as a chrysalis wraps & seals the gold threshold—
awaiting the shiver—those radiant wings of light—
frail weight, departing to alight at the next threshold.
WE WHO ATTEND, SUSPENDED
within the room of plush plum-
colored chairs which open
their arms to enfold us—receiving
our bodies’ alarum & thrum
under sutured hours—
meantime
we listen for word, keen to
the hospital chapel’s bright chime—
its strike a shimmer announcing
the one or the other (birth) (death):
one more someone who’s slid
in or out on oxygen shock, who
reverberates into one or
the other unknown, the opening
closing behind—
only consider
the bell’s double ripples
sprung from the hospital’s heart,
alternative trembles that echo
outward, charging atoms of air,
entering ear by stunned ear
to notify each of us draped
weary on love-seats or counting
blank doors—
waiting, awaiting—
or pressing the lift button (up,
down)—consider that single
same chime for passage of
blood, passage of pearl, ringing
outward through plaster &
glass, past snow-sheeted court-
yards all pine & ice, past
axis & nebula, & so never—
never—reaching an end,
each atom yielding its one-half
the distance, one-half &
one-half, sounding note during,
enduring . . .
meantime we wait,
tuned to hum inside the summons . . .
meantime we have the arms of
plum-colored chairs & this room,
we have each other
at St. Charles Hospital
SNAKE, ASIDE
Call me Isadore. Or Dora. My whim,
or yours—I’m supple as well, yes, a snake.
Serpent. Slither. I, both & neither (sex
or gender). First of that long line:
Hermaphroditus (simultaneous)
or Teiresias (sequential). Filius
& filia at once of Aphrodite, queen
of love & beauty—& Hermes, quick-
silver thief of cattle. Hearts. Melder
of silver, all things to all denizens
of Eden. So, Dr. Glitter to Eve’s thirst,
my diamond skin glinting, seductive as
Persephone in her thigh-slit sequined Queen
gown—nonetheless, it was my glittering mind
that drew Eve to temptation, to That Tree
in the midst of the garden. Knowledge
of good & evil. Etcetera. And so
she bit, and so she’s sprung forth, mother of
blue-stockinged brainy ladies everywhere
to be. Left behind: that Other Tree. You
frown? In the omphalos of Paradise,
two trees, two bodies, so: double lusts.
Eve notched off my list, now Adam, but
he’s slow to seize the red rolling fruit:
his eye on the other prize—Tree of Life.
Watch him pause, apple half-way to his lips.
Appetite glancing toward the low-hanging
fruit of that luscious bush—dusky plum-rose
odor. Okay, I know my job—nudge him
to the pomme that will make him pomme de terre—
trading air for earth & dirt. Then he’ll be
gone, he’ll in fact be you. I’ll pay in legs
lost, asquirm on belly, but not as bad
as if I’d let him taste the other fruit. So:
I’ll sun my curves in peace—at least until
they call for Pandora’s box of seed-dreams—
the pomegranate, once again. Again.
Judith H. Montgomery’s poems appear in the Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review, Prairie Schooner, and Cave Wall, among other journals, as well as in a number of anthologies. Her chapbook, Passion, received the 2000 Oregon Book Award for Poetry; Red Jess, a finalist for several national first book prizes, was published by Cherry Grove Collections (2006); Pulse & Constellation (finalist for the Finishing Line Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2007) followed. Her new manuscript, Litany for Bloom and Wound, centers on scarring and healing, particularly in the lives of women.
823 on High 