Amplitude: New and Selected Poems
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
This is one of my favorite poetry collections. Gallagher's poems are stunning and beautiful. Let me give you an example:
Each Bird Walking
Not while, but long after he had told me,
I thought of him, washing his mother, his
bending over the bed and taking back
the covers. There was a basin of water
and he dipped a washrag in and
out of the basin, the rag
dripping a little onto the sheet as he
turned from the bedside to the nightstand
and back, there being no place
on her body he shouldn't touch because
he had to and she helped him, moving
the little she could, lifting so he could
wipe under her arms, a dipping motion
in the hollow. Then working up from
the feet, around the ankles, over the
knees. And this last, opening
her thighs and running the rag firmly
and with the cleaning thought
up through the crotch, between the lips,
over the thin V of hairs-
as though he were a mother
who had the excuse of cleaning to touch
with love and indifference
the secret parts of her child, to graze
the sleepy sexlessness in its waiting
to find out what to do for the sake
of the body, for the sake of what only
the body can do for itself.
So his hand, softly at the place
of his birthlight. And she, eyes deepened
and closed in the dim room.
And because he told me her death as
important to being with her,
I could love him another way. Not
of the body alone, or of its making,
but carried in the white spires of trembling
until what spirit, what breath we were
was shaken from us. Small then,
the word holy.
He turned her on her stomach
and washed the blades of her shoulders, the
small of her back. "That's good," she said,
"that's enough."
On our lips that morning, the tart juice
of the mothers, so strong in rememberance, no
asking, no giving, and what you said, this
being the end of our loving, so as not to hurt
the one closer to you, made me look
to see what was left of us
with our sex taken away. "Tell me," I said,
"something I can't forget." Then the story of
your mother, and when you finished
I said "that's good, that's enough."
Each Bird Walking
Not while, but long after he had told me,
I thought of him, washing his mother, his
bending over the bed and taking back
the covers. There was a basin of water
and he dipped a washrag in and
out of the basin, the rag
dripping a little onto the sheet as he
turned from the bedside to the nightstand
and back, there being no place
on her body he shouldn't touch because
he had to and she helped him, moving
the little she could, lifting so he could
wipe under her arms, a dipping motion
in the hollow. Then working up from
the feet, around the ankles, over the
knees. And this last, opening
her thighs and running the rag firmly
and with the cleaning thought
up through the crotch, between the lips,
over the thin V of hairs-
as though he were a mother
who had the excuse of cleaning to touch
with love and indifference
the secret parts of her child, to graze
the sleepy sexlessness in its waiting
to find out what to do for the sake
of the body, for the sake of what only
the body can do for itself.
So his hand, softly at the place
of his birthlight. And she, eyes deepened
and closed in the dim room.
And because he told me her death as
important to being with her,
I could love him another way. Not
of the body alone, or of its making,
but carried in the white spires of trembling
until what spirit, what breath we were
was shaken from us. Small then,
the word holy.
He turned her on her stomach
and washed the blades of her shoulders, the
small of her back. "That's good," she said,
"that's enough."
On our lips that morning, the tart juice
of the mothers, so strong in rememberance, no
asking, no giving, and what you said, this
being the end of our loving, so as not to hurt
the one closer to you, made me look
to see what was left of us
with our sex taken away. "Tell me," I said,
"something I can't forget." Then the story of
your mother, and when you finished
I said "that's good, that's enough."
This book is going to bookcrosser jennyo along with another book I am sending her in celebration of national poetry month.
In honor of National Poetry Month, tamarabk was nice enough to include one of Tess Gallagher's books of poetry with another book she sent me. I don't often read poetry, so it's nice to have someone pick something out for me. I remember reading about Tess Gallagher in Alice Sebold's Lucky. I thought then that I should find something she'd written, but with so many in my TBR stack, I didn't take time to do it. Now tamarabk has sent me a collection. What a wonderful place BookCrossing is!!
Journal Entry 4 by O-Jenny at Shipley's Donuts at 31st and Loop 363 in Temple, Texas USA on Saturday, July 12, 2003
Released on Saturday, July 12, 2003 at Shipley's Donuts at 31st and Loop 363 in Temple, Texas USA.
