Heavens and Earth

Chapter 54: P. P. C.—MADAM LIFE

Open in WeRead

About This Book

The collection assembles varied lyric and narrative poems that range from reworkings of classical myths to sharp urban vignettes and satirical sketches of modern life. Several longer pieces retell mythic episodes with vivid, imagistic language, while other poems observe city streets, public figures, and personal loss with concise reportage and elegiac restraint. Recurring concerns include desire, mortality, war, and social disorder, framed by a tension between heroic past and everyday present and rendered through formal experimentation and dramatic monologue.

P. P. C.—MADAM LIFE

All through the heavy plush of afternoon,
Your muffin-hands in your upholstered lap,
I listened to your voice like maple-sap
Trickle and whisper from its sugary spoon
Grandmother-talk, a drowning warm lagoon,
Weakling advice, slow anecdotes of pap—
And longed for fins to wave or wings to flap,
Or anything to end the visit soon.

Now the call ceases—there shall be no other—
Dowager Life, I bend above your hand.
Flung from your hothouse to the tempest-smother
Your fright calls Death and dares not understand!
Such a nice chat! Oh, taking leave is hard!
But—here’s my body for a calling-card!