Traci Brimhall | Poetry
from NER 41.2
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HAZEL-NUT SCIENCE
Not all hazel-trees (I read) are self-fertile.
Now I know this, I’m certain our tree is a hazel.
It’s no less a tree since I named it “barren.”
Its harvest is a far-out kind, as if your
lately cold, black, untouched pans were lit
by a gasp of gas from the imp in “kitchen impro.”
When I met you between the dawning
and dusky tree today I posted into space-time
my greeting, “Zdrasvyutye, tovarisch povar!”
No need for anything flowery.
The sounds from my mouth are Russian vinaigrette.
Take it with salt, dill, and a cloud of pollen.
I think I’m still self-fertile. If you saw me you’d see
my hair, my skin, my eyes, all tattering into rain
but I water the tree, I grease your pans again.
I’m not at all blown away, though I walk towards you.
“In the miracles of domestic science are many
simple chemical processes,” you observe.
“What are you reading, there in your smoky deathlight?
Any good recipes for peace, for justice?”
“There are no good cooks” you tell me,
“so all the good recipes are forbidden.”
In my Stephen Hawking voice, I say, “in hazel-nut science,
the imagined pollinates the impossible.”
Zdrasvyutye, tovarisch povar! —Greetings, comrade chef!
I WELCOMED THE STRANGER
The day of his visit cameslowly and hot-foot.
I went to buy plums in the market,
all I could see ahead of me,
the night, dressed in music,
and the feast.The wing-beat of a door, breath-silver caught
on mirrors…Not a bullet but a single plum-stone
lay in my fist next day, and the day after—
my days and years of atonement.
I’d welcomed the stranger:
I forgot his street-name was ‘enemy’.I slept. I couldn’t wake up
but I guarded the creased red stone that had filled his mouth.Whenever I sleepwalked
home I could see the sunlit
step the vine his darkness
waiting waiting to turn
turn into me into ultraviolet It’s thirty years since the day
I saw everything I was not. Another Autumn comes with Spring in its arms,
My garden flows with yellowing stems, white seed.
My religion means nothing—
a thread of hair, a plum-stone.
COLLATERAL DAMAGEAging is losingBit by bit
The life called “yours.”
You bow to it:
Loss of hearing,
Sight, teeth, hair.
Other things break
Or fail, but they’re
Replaceable.
Slippers, too new
At first, will mould
To the shape of you.
I hated time,
But still it had
A suite of movements—
Sombre, glad—
The walk to church,
Or the corner shop,
My son, occasionally
Turning up—
Patterns whose dreamlike
Waves were cast
Across long nights—
These, too, are lost,
Smothered like city-
Lights in war.
Yes, this is war
And this, the law
We are instructed
To obey—
We, “the public,”
The lumpen “they”—
Emissaries
Of a new Black Death
With our dangerous fingers,
Voices, breath.
So “life goes on”
In novel ways.
Who needs the sun
When flat screens blaze?
I bought a phone,
Paddled online,
Through the rainbow pools
Of glaucoma-shine.
The phone-god spoke.
When I replied
He played a scale
On his lute, and died.
I wanted to speak
of Necessity
And how for some
It may simply be
A cyclist’s wave,
Leaf-scented air,
A tea-light lit
At Friday prayer.
Why isn’t hope
Like milk or eggs?
(You can queue for those
If you’ve still got legs).
I’d need no more
Than a walking cane
For a mile of world
And a smile again.
I watch the kettle
And overhear
The “lockdown” news—
Another year
If you’re seventy plus,
For your protection.
I think they mean
Our de-selection.
Jill’s in a care-home,
Moved there to be
Nearer the kids
She mustn’t see.
Jack had a cold.
The hospital said,
You’re fine, go home.
And now he’s dead.
His carers cried
But did their tasks,
Without complaint,
And without masks.
Coughing, my neighbour
Says “Don’t fuss.
Protect the heroes
Protecting us.”
I don’t want favours—
Only grace,
At a distance kept,
Or with covered face,
To frame a window
For the blind,
Or mend a memory-
fractured mind.
I was a child
In ’48:
I had two mothers,
One, the State;
Both history, now.
The people’s health
Was stocked and shared
By the lords of wealth.
It gasped for breath
And starved for years
On a drip of sugar-
Tinctured tears.
I have my wits
(a few) and pride.
It’s spring. I think
Of suicide
But that’s a sin,
The second-worst:
To harm another
Is the first.
So we turn keys
On freezing tombs
Once living-rooms
and loving rooms.
Are we the parasites
Or hosts?
The dead, or the tiny
Wailing ghosts
That circle human
Sacrifice—
Once, living cells,
Once, families?
♦
Note: The speaker in “Collateral Damage” is an English widow nearing her eighties, self-isolating during the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s a period during which the Westminster government blasts out the constant slogan (enforceable by new, un-debated laws) “Stay at home. Save lives. Protect the NHS.” There are a few activities exempted from the “stay at home” rule, e.g., shopping for necessities. The speaker in the poem questions this limited interpretation of human necessity. She was born during World War II and remembers the London “black-out.” The number mentioned in stanza twenty-five (’48) implies 1948, the year in which the UK’s National Health Service was founded.
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