Laura Kasischke has published seven collections of poetry, most recently LILIES WITHOUT (Ausable Press) and seven novels.
She lives in Chelsea, Michigan, and teaches at the University of Michigan. ---------
Twilight in Eden
The moon, lascivious as the sphinx.
The snake
in the orchard.
The hoofprint
and the hoofprint
in the mud
side by side
beyond the trampled violets.
Summer, we squandered it.
It turned into autumn.
We loved it too much.
It squirmed from our arms. God
had so much to say on the subject
but, like idiots, we didn’t listen.
Heaven, quivering now, juggling
its little pinpricks in the coming dark.
Blowing its birthday candles out.
The fireflies, so much manic
embroidery on the air.
The rabbits full of sorrow in their snares.
Like sentiment, like judgment, like
nostalgia, which really means
unbearably tender memories
of the dead
and their many complaints against us.
I give you Twilight-in-Eden inside
a tiny, mechanical device.
Call it Flash Drive. Call it Cell Phone.
Call it WiFi.
Call it whatever you like.
Call it Storm-on-Sunday. Call it
Bright-Speeding-Ambulance-in-an-Eye.
Black Sunday
How bad?
Give it to me in little doses.
Take it out of me one by one like teeth.
At church, all the good people worship
while I nurse my hangover
and curse my God.
The pictures, the knick-
knacks, the end of the world. The
color of the dress I forgot I wore.
And the path beneath me, weeping cleanly.
And the flashlight on the forest in the middle of the night:
That small hole of brightness
punched into the darkness, revealing just
more darkness. Much, much more.