Brenda Hillman is the author of eight collections of poetry, the most recent of which are Pieces of Air in the Epic (2005) and Practical Water (2009). She is Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at St. Mary’s College of California, and works with CodePink. She lives in the Bay Area.
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A Spiral Tries to Feel Again
for MD
The upwelling of the sea continues.
Untold mouths scoop up the tiny krill.
Spin, goes the cog of the snowflake
on the hill; far inland,
blind litters of the muskrat curl
& in your heart a nameless spiral
around the blue dot—;
if this were the classics…
but it’s not. After the royal
wedding, the kill. Cassandra
is dragged out, the corpse
is dumped into the sea—there!
fire in the compound—
the spiral tries to free itself
& in the pit, young humans
dance in their murderous awe.
Not even the seasons,
surely not humans, feel
what the spiral feels,
in the trees, in the trees, the bodies
without organs gasp,
& the sea swells over the evidence.
Exhausted from the unsayable
the letters pause beside your desk,
in the shadow of sheer flux
where it’s not safe to feel nothing;
outside intention, the words gather.
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photo credit: Forrest Gander