Beneath the Surface II: Mal au monde

Easter, 2009

I'm drowning under the
weight of the whole
world out there
spinning, shouting
hooplahing and counting on
each one of us to carry his
or her own weightlessness, and I
underneath it, unfit, a pittance
a solid knock of nothingness on
hard wood, or rather on mud
on the bottom of the pond, and not
I alone, but everyone with
mal au monde, that waterborne
disease and loneliness in the
bones of these aching women in
their homes, with worms: skin flints
brigands and frauds, or whatever
they call us, the lost souls of
somatic illness, mental, psychic
call it what you will, with
no physical cause apparent in
telescopes or x-ray vision
diseases spread through
whoredom, thievery, or
just plain old bad luck, spread
like butter on warm toast and
none of us dead, no, none of
us baked or fatted up for lent
but all of us just grumbling broads
behind closed doors with no one
left to blame, no facades, no
charades, just fantasies, like light
flashes across red mountains
sleeplessness in the morning, bad
attitudes toward lost lovers and
lousy mothers but gone our
rapists and murderers, all
gone to dogs, and we at the
bottom of this waste water pond
mouthing "help" but meaning "get out"
i shudder in the frozen "o"
i cascade down whirlpools
and lie here in madness below zero
absalom absalom, but daughter
forgotten heroine of my own
swimming, invention caught
again in my throat and taking
in water like a leaking boat
as all the saints rise from the
opening earth and pass over
oceans and unite in one long
deafening cry of
loneliness and hope
we are not drowned yet
we may be forgotten but
we will not forget, and
it must be said at last that
you will not understand, for
you must lie beneath
the surface for many days
and pray for it all to go away
before the real death comes
and sweeps us from the bottom
of this sickening pond