Two POEMS
Melissa Shepherd
Copenhagen, call of the void
The touring boat slips low
through one canal
after another, a blur
of moody slate-blue water,
though not enough
for people sitting on the sides
to pass upright beneath the bridges.
I’m in the middle, likely fine,
but I duck when the captain ducks,
the drama of the gesture
building every time and masking
how I have no sense of distance,
my head from a curve of stone.
Unforgiving, I imagine,
and I could guess wrong.
Or not guess at all: stand
and take the final bridge straight on
like a blade; lop off my head,
bet on transformation. Plunge her
in the sea-fed cold,
a portal to an unknown world.
Grief not my purpose there,
just a portion of the quay wall.
I could be pretty for the fish,
my face pale and jellied,
rippling in the summer
sun. By winter, I could amber
and backdate to the ancestors,
battle-hardened Vikings
who didn’t blink at severed heads.
I could be a glint of peace for them
in the ice and dark. And once
they taught me how to navigate
the Danish vowels, I could unfurl
their pagan blessings
from my throat like fins
and pulse up to the surface.
When I hit the air
I would have human limbs again,
strong pliant ones—a wonder
I would never take for granted. Also:
a bicycle, a tall blond husband
named Rasmus,
a Scandi duplex
in the shiny new development
on Paper Island
next to the pastry shop.
In between soft bites of cardamom
and butter, from the safety
of my steel-reinforced balcony,
I would hear the water calling
and I would answer,
tip my hat.
I Sing the Belly Elastic
O loyal friend, flooded in acid and allergens,
spilling tea all the way to the colon,
O partisan, stirred by steel-wool worries,
scrubbing at neurons until they come clean,
how you buck your fragile nature to protect me,
how you suffer for cause after cause.
I’m sorry for every fishhook swallowed,
for 8-pound human bombs dropped twice
and box-cutter surgery. I see up close the price
of bravery, the compound interest coming due,
but to me you’re still beautiful,
like those downtown painters from the ’50s,
who aged prematurely from cigarettes and solvents
but took a mean black-and-white photo. That’s you,
a hero from another era, an action artist running
on fumes. My highest compliment. Not Pollock—
Krasner, who made the most of her mistakes,
who loosed her grief into a sea change. Such fiery
pinks you couldn’t dream, and you deal in the mediums
of mangled fascia and raised scars. Which makes me
think, what tragedy are we waiting on? The past
already dripped on the floor. I papered over it,
I know, but now I’m stronger. I can hold my own
water. Give you back the light, the magic kind
out East. Remember how forgiving it can be
and how alive we felt there, in the whole body?
O master piece, let’s go home. Lie in the old twin
bed and imagine the world turning
at our will again, a skinny island where we
night swim. The ocean a sieve for regret,
the moon a mirror of love—what’s left of us.
Or to us. Or beyond. What’s done
is never done, so a song from the heart—rolling
blues and funk, as many verses as you want.
The touring boat slips low
through one canal
after another, a blur
of moody slate-blue water,
though not enough
for people sitting on the sides
to pass upright beneath the bridges.
I’m in the middle, likely fine,
but I duck when the captain ducks,
the drama of the gesture
building every time and masking
how I have no sense of distance,
my head from a curve of stone.
Unforgiving, I imagine,
and I could guess wrong.
Or not guess at all: stand
and take the final bridge straight on
like a blade; lop off my head,
bet on transformation. Plunge her
in the sea-fed cold,
a portal to an unknown world.
Grief not my purpose there,
just a portion of the quay wall.
I could be pretty for the fish,
my face pale and jellied,
rippling in the summer
sun. By winter, I could amber
and backdate to the ancestors,
battle-hardened Vikings
who didn’t blink at severed heads.
I could be a glint of peace for them
in the ice and dark. And once
they taught me how to navigate
the Danish vowels, I could unfurl
their pagan blessings
from my throat like fins
and pulse up to the surface.
When I hit the air
I would have human limbs again,
strong pliant ones—a wonder
I would never take for granted. Also:
a bicycle, a tall blond husband
named Rasmus,
a Scandi duplex
in the shiny new development
on Paper Island
next to the pastry shop.
In between soft bites of cardamom
and butter, from the safety
of my steel-reinforced balcony,
I would hear the water calling
and I would answer,
tip my hat.
I Sing the Belly Elastic
O loyal friend, flooded in acid and allergens,
spilling tea all the way to the colon,
O partisan, stirred by steel-wool worries,
scrubbing at neurons until they come clean,
how you buck your fragile nature to protect me,
how you suffer for cause after cause.
I’m sorry for every fishhook swallowed,
for 8-pound human bombs dropped twice
and box-cutter surgery. I see up close the price
of bravery, the compound interest coming due,
but to me you’re still beautiful,
like those downtown painters from the ’50s,
who aged prematurely from cigarettes and solvents
but took a mean black-and-white photo. That’s you,
a hero from another era, an action artist running
on fumes. My highest compliment. Not Pollock—
Krasner, who made the most of her mistakes,
who loosed her grief into a sea change. Such fiery
pinks you couldn’t dream, and you deal in the mediums
of mangled fascia and raised scars. Which makes me
think, what tragedy are we waiting on? The past
already dripped on the floor. I papered over it,
I know, but now I’m stronger. I can hold my own
water. Give you back the light, the magic kind
out East. Remember how forgiving it can be
and how alive we felt there, in the whole body?
O master piece, let’s go home. Lie in the old twin
bed and imagine the world turning
at our will again, a skinny island where we
night swim. The ocean a sieve for regret,
the moon a mirror of love—what’s left of us.
Or to us. Or beyond. What’s done
is never done, so a song from the heart—rolling
blues and funk, as many verses as you want.
Melissa Shepherd is an arts advocate and emerging poet who lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her work has appeared in Good River Review and The Dread Literary Review. She holds an MFA in poetry from the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University and just completed her first book of poetry, Keys to the Emptying House. www.melissashepherd.info