Monday, July 4, 2016

Greater than I

i.
Once
I remember a time,
once I was a person
before I was powder
crushed
by a husband’s betrayal, his buckling
under a woman’s decrees
that he divorce immediately
disown his family
and I not see our son
except in times and places fit for her –

ii.
so the long, long road
to and fro gruelling
endlessly re-fuelling
to get my child
– resentful, grieved, skin and nails bitten –
breaking my heart
by a to and fro aching:
thorns of a foreign province

iii.
once
before I became powder
through illness in the man I loved,
his hole of debt,
his mental scree,
his efforts to endure and help me

I was
– was I? –
a person
apparently

iv.
before the office job
 – three telephones crying for hospitality,
the screen a diarrhoea of mails
each day to be wiped away quietly,
and praising or complaining guests
to be sweetened equally –

v.
dimly I remember far away
– was I once
a person?
… this implosion is not of the body:
my thighs are silky, strong,
I wash myself still,
go through the rituals of toner, moisturiser, lotion,
hungrily eat what you cook …

vi.
but it’s a once-was lovely shell you feed,
inner mettle crushed
to powder, dust.
I suffered too much
so you must not,
don’t come near me now.
Nothing holds
together –
there’s nothing to hold these years on me,
the pressure has been
greater than I.

 - Silke Heiss

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