poem: Marie Elizabeth Mali

 

 

Taken for Granted

 

Hands leave behind more than prints—
the knitting and the ripping, empty
grape stems in a red bowl, a bruise.
When I said engine I meant death.
Grace invites us into itself so consistently,
we can refuse it. Stars uncover their eyes
in the dark. Lightning always seeks
the ground. Morning will find us
still breathing. I never understood
the impulse to carve initials into a tree,
plant my footprint in wet concrete.
Forgetfulness is ecstasy’s cousin.
I’d be lost without the horizon.
Nothing royal about a queen-sized bed.
Twists and turns are the most direct.
Maybe careen is my normal. I need
a mirror to see my face, and even then
it’s on backwards. I’m not you. I’m like
you. I’m nothing but you. Some lotuses
only bloom in moonlight. Sound needs
silence to make sense. When I eat grapes,
I eat the sun. Inside the bruise, my song.

 

MARIE ELIZABETH MALI is the author of Steady, My Gaze (Tebot Bach, 2011). She is a co-curator of louderARTS: the Reading Series at Bar 13 Lounge and Page Meets Stage at the Bowery Poetry Club, both in New York City. Before receiving her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, she practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Poet Lore, and RATTLE, among others. For more information, please visit her website at www.memali.com and her blog at www.memali.posterous.com