Mud Town
© Margaret Wesseling
We went to sleep
you and I in her bed
in your mother’s house.
Outside it rained and dogs
barked. In the discussion room
people were forceful and elegant.
I decided many futures, decided
to sleep longer.
© Margaret Wesseling
We went to sleep
you and I in her bed
in your mother’s house.
Outside it rained and dogs
barked. In the discussion room
people were forceful and elegant.
I decided many futures, decided
to sleep longer.
© Margaret Wesseling
Now I’m trying to go to sleep
and I don’t believe in you because you never answered
although somehow, like coffee, I couldn't stop praying.
Lord, could you please get Cristian some glasses
two years ago when he needed them
instead of punishing him for two years
and get Alfonso a father and Bernie a mother
and I don’t know what’s going on with Bertha
and sometimes, don’t care. More materials, God
© Margaret Wesseling
How strange to think the human body—
how it mourns its own passing.
Frail bone lodge bound with blood
shoulders arc guarding throb, craving
then nothing left. We will be light
to light one day, flesh to dust.
Now the body shits and spits,
moves, talks. Seems apart from us,
seems one with us. Grew up with us.
Stage by stage we drag it after us
and who knows
what we will do
© Margaret Wesseling
Morning
Sun trees earth sky. Houses.
We live in this. In other
people. See a young guy
walk down the street
shoulders slumped face old
I don’t know why.
Old women scold.
Young women sneer in tight clothes
in clubs every night
until too fat or busy.
©Margaret Wesseling
ripples of heat embrace
my arms and neck
the distance sends breezes
sun sprays off rock
dry country rolls
spills heat
these striped hills fade
an old etching
too full of light
© Margaret Wesseling
What he knew from the beginning
was that the sun existed
and without the sun, nothing else.
Things could get confused in a storm:
clouds walking down the fields,
ditch mud backed up through turf.
He drew the forms light shows you:
a naked woman—a candlestick.
Then he saw he needed more.
He needed light's hand, needed color's
touch. He walked south. But the
sunflower fists turned green after all
with envy. He died
unable to paint the hand that drew him.
© Margaret Wesseling 2020
Step out
even though it's still cold
and the water tears your feet.
Never mind the blanket.
Leave the blanket inside.
Maybe you need it
you think you need it
maybe.
© Margaret Wesseling 2021
And all the women get together
and sew up a phone list
and weave copies for everybody on the loom
and pass them around
© Margaret Wesseling 2021
The thing is
there aren't many poems about smoking.
I can't think of one.