Mom's House by Sarah Regnier

This is no statute crying blood,
no wounds weeping from the palm of hands. The
Jesus on your wall pried himself off that cross
a long time ago, leaving nothing but porcelain and floral
in his wake. The imprint of his perfect, clean back
rises in flight, arms extended like absence as it
hovers above the rest of the bric-a-brac flying low solitude
and anchored to the wall. Her world collapsed
early Sunday morning.

The princess tore herself upon the teeth of the window. There is now
shredded flimsy white dangling itself from between teeth,
stuck and clinging in testament to the night that she tried
to escape. She had hung a star from the waist of her gown for good luck
before she shoved herself into its mouth. Now, there is a wind
that plays it as melody and calls it curtain. Don’t try to find out her name;
you never knew it anyway. Those creatures have jumped the barricades
and have headed for the sea.

Did you know that you lost her? The roosters on your shelf
never warned you of her impending departure. They were neither
friend or foe, though you counted on them to never make a fuss
while they stood there looking gorgeous and glazed
in the sunlight, just like their eyes. Just like your eyes. While the
morning yawned and broke yellow through the window, you
never saw her coming or going. The hens
below them never clucked their secrets into your ears. That’s what
things do when you only want them to look pretty. She began to breathe,
to breathe at the thought of such freedom.

Plates never eaten upon,
mouths never lit alive to warm the chasm of days spent in the dark,
embraces that never bloomed. The yellow roses
suspended in silk upon your wall are the last things left in this house
that still look like her. The star in the window tries to light itself
to play candle against the wall that looks like a grave. Somewhere,
there is no tombstone to trade for a chrysalis; this is not
how you get your wings. Draw herself to sleep and call it Paradise,
close her mouth shut and call it ache. The window forgave her
for the lines she drew up her arm. These barricades
can only hold for so long.

Written 8/14/10
© 2010 Nicole Nicholson except for material in italics, which is © 1991 R.E.M. Athens, Ltd. All rights reserved on originial material by N. Nicholson.

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This poem was written for >We Write Poems Prompt #15: What Do You See In This Image?. The gods sent me a little birthday gift this year — a poem on my birthday. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, I think I ended up reading a darker angle into the picture at the top of the post, which Mallery over at WWP gave us for inspiration this week. I hope you enjoyed the poem.

-Nicole

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