Memory XIII
(numbering the oceans of the sea)
left-handed shadows are so much more
comforting while circling with pain and darkness
those tiny puddles of the world
(lights out lights out)
pill-popping to nod myself
but even so the echoes of the clock
whir out through the crunching hours of the night
poor little sad little thing:
a broken duck, dragging its mangled wing, arrived too late
(tension hums along my spine)
all the bread was gone from heaven,
quacked away in a frenzy of feathers
“Old woman, bread woman:
“can’t you see! can’t you see the cross-eyed
“duckling dragging its slow way to you;
“hope dogging it’s all-gasping:
“but you are gone. you have no bread for crippled ducks.”
the flock departs, as the broken one arrives.
memories scare the dreams away:
did my eyes weep huge crocodile tears?
did I sniffle for a broken beast?
***
There was this one winter when I really started confronting my demons in a serious way. It involved some brain meds, which I felt super ambivalent about at the time, but, in retrospect, helped me a great deal. I worked for a little while in this office park that had a duck pond in the middle of it. One day, I watched this old woman feeding bread to some ducks. The ducks swarmed over, ate all the bread, and then this poor duck with a messed up wing finally got there only to find the bread all gone. I was sad about this for a while so I ended up writing this thing about it. I guess I’m still a little sad about it.