5 poems
from The Long Now Conditions Permit
On the Beach at Sunset
She has waited all day for it to be okay
to go for a walk, she wants
her flounce to evaporate their stare.
She does not want to be afraid of their gaze.
She is not there for those
who watch her from their studied chairs.
Her gender plus her dress are not a formula for their help.
Let them think what they will, her frock
the flock in open air suggested.
The ending of light at the outlet gulls gather.
When someone approaches they lift
out of reach, their shadows Escherian
As she sits one gull mews close, wanting what
she supposes, which she does not have.
The broken foot of this gull.
The broken wing of that gull.
The mica sand and opalescent muscle shells.
A sudden blue between wandering clouds.
The blue string of horizon strung out.
The salt wind and sail to wherever.
The curved shore, the skip along across water in a stone’s throw.
The crawl of ocean, desperate for shore.
When the water goes out, it takes of the beloved
Water’s obedience articulates grain’s tiny oppressions,
being undersized for their trying.
Before the sea’s radiant taxiing, her longing
to go out, wash in.
The sand, the sea, infinite theater.
Her theater: waiting for light, a her of she here.
The light does not long persist.
The ending of light at the outlet gulls gather.
What is left are feathers.
The Woman in the Changeling Season with Her Choice
answers the questions
the right decision interview requires.
When her mind remains estranged from changing
she funnels farther inside the building’s tunneling
white walls, behind-her falling closed doors and fallopian corridors
toward the procedure theater, toward the nurse
she did not want to coddle her hand, toward
the tall, already masked, man-mum doctor she could not look-muster,
toward refused Valium and the vacuuming sounds of the vacuum
aspiration emptying her uterus of an aspiring breath–
will-less sweat exudes her forehead
as she bears down
the twenty-minute nonspontaneous ending
she chose
toward life without the life she stole from being made,
the one he would have left her on her own to raise.
—
Those next in the wide-windowed waiting room
watching squirrels hop the orange and tawny leaves
already fallen off November’s thin and faceless trees.
Bardo Friend and I Belly Up to Smattering Stars
our legs skin cool as corrugate as light falls
disarming the distance between sky and our bodies
alive provocative the entire
sky machine made stars a minefield
mini-fires shake down on friend and I
flares arc a scar transmit
a girl sadness dusks mountains
scatters the background indigo blue
the universe expands as friend and I talk
of the accrued liars of our lives
damn night forming anxiety after day
reminders of the liars’ aged words
friend’s dry needle has permanently abolished
her heart muscle in five preceding days
then friend took leave showed me elbows
friend left me my heart with friend in it
without her I shall stumble numb my future
for now friend and I agree the corporate monsters
lied about there being enough bee hives
weather farms salmon ladders keystone species
I and friend cast together for Earth
we want free leopards hippos friend and I tell the stars
let the lion pride set upon Africa full of poachers
set upon thieves who summarize the world’s elephants
thieves friend and I say to the transmitting stars
if you want to take take from your lives
dew makes soggy the roof friend and I
under meal of blanket-tangled spider mosquitos
I and friend circumvent further discussion
she passes between worlds an interlude
friend friend friend multiplying
dances over the dewy roof
nighthawks fly to a holy port
ribbit of frogs chirp of crickets a compilation
for friend no longer living I lean the living ladder
against the sky and sleep in the house we no longer star
Hester Prynne
I let ambiguous shame stitch a letter
to my breast. In fact, it was I who stitched it there—
a small business embroidery-work—
and let its red-thread tentacles
sucker shame’s admittance.
The shell-less-ness,
the townspeople’s scorn and bitterness—
a terrestrial form of taunt, their want
kept their pleasure
like the formal cap confining my hair.
But never mind them.
This is between me and shame.
When that shade-loving slug
wants it dimmer, I dim
my head and lower the lamp.
I make myself available to shame and shame
teases me and my house’s floor
with dust and potato bugs.
Now, shame wants some space, so I walk to the shore.
My dress’ hem lost in the mass of sand,
the toilsome sea, my confidant.
With the clouds and townspeople mounting, I expect
some heavy aggression then boom, but no.
Though I refuse to give the townspeople the name,
I tell you, I could do nothing else but
accept the penance and let shame
shimmer its A out in the open.
After many not unhappy, self-devoted years,
a moment of recognition—in front of me,
an acorn, leaf still attached,
falls from an oak, bounces off the boarded walkway
and rolls under the tire of a passing wagon
that rolls over it.
O stigma, don’t you know you are my badge,
the one my husband shame sent ahead?
Her Being Cold Caused Her Death
her being cold caused her death , this thought
a gray spot on my brain
as day’s arriving light glints the horizon
washes the overwintering birds with sun—
——
a theory : her essence and mine—our essences in volumes—
marvelous proof
at the dawn pond-margin where wake
and bathe sandhill cranes and snow geese
she is of everywhere tree’s breath , her
in the field where the cranes nibble corn stubble
the coyote-traversed slope the owl’s who , her
in the light by my blue door
at three in the morning spread throughout the night
——
the memory of her like a bicycle wheel turns upon sand
where she is in a blink resembling a coastline—
waves replaying regret
narrow these undertakings
of where she is
where I am
where comfort makes the room a fire and a bath
thrall of lavender water
the room , a prophet of place
stares at a wall in each direction
erosion to wall-less-ness
forms the presence
where she and I are
——
where she and I are is telling
an argument explaining twenty years later from why
to not asking in another day of gravity
the uncertainties indeterminant
——
so to write her externalizes
her , a waning moon owl’s soundless flight
off and
free
can
her wrong death
prove right
——
sprawled Mobius , a starling murmuration blackens , spreads and thins
whirls , wheels changed directions
——
she might say I feel fine with everything
because who can plan for this weather of winter camping
surely trying we would shrink or overdrink
she might say I carry nothing in my pockets , neither will you
she might say I no longer need shoes or to plan dinner
but I can still love socks
do not worry , her last words
her voice celestial , she waves and grows smaller
Jami Macarty gratefully recognizes Native Nations of the West—especially the Coast Salish and Tohono O’odham—as the traditional and rightful owners of lands where Jami has the great privilege to live and work—as a teacher at Simon Fraser University, as an independent editor, and as a writer of essays, reviews, and poetry. Jami is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award - Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, Banff Centre, British Columbia Arts Council, The Community of Writers, and by the confidence of editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Interim, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s writing is forthcoming.