Lisa Lewis

No Condolences

In the days after the flood,

some parts of town were under

water, roads closed and cars

poke-nosing slowly by

to try to guess how much,

how long, how far in,

whose houses, stables, horse

trailers went under.  We

drove too, the loaner boatish

with heavy doors dropping

against our legs when we

stopped at the hotel to step

out and rest.  Paperwork

and phone calls alerting

whoever cared or was paid

to help, which doesn’t count

as help.  No one called

us unless we called first.

I thought it was still the old

blame that follows me

everywhere.  Whenever

the shadow draws across

mine like a blanket, I

suspect.  But I’m used

to it.  I step back inside

a kind of threshold to what

might be kindness if I were

a real person.  To the blamers, I

mean, who might really just be

too tired to care.  How can I

expect the exhausted to offer

a ride in a rowboat?

They’re not the type to go

fishing.  They’re ambitious,

and they have to keep

going when I hang back

in high waters, floating

on top to seek the square

footage where, exactly,

my bed once lied about safety.

A Few Simple Requests

If one of your eyes was brown and the other sewn shut.

If one of my hands was a claw and yours was a bucket.

If this house were a broom and the sky a train conductor.

If the street were the sea.

If the trees were absentee ballots.

If the bones in your knee grew apart. 

Oh, say none of these things, say nothing.

Raise your hand to your face, all the way to the forehead.

Wipe away. 

A woman stepping out of a driverless car.

Stairs freshly painted in front of an empty house.

A choir swaying together and a child.

I’m waiting for you to come down.

I’m watching the catkins form on the trees.

I’m observing the strange new angle of your left leg.

Someday we’ll go to the beach again, I promise.

We’ll get the same house.

Remember the colors?

The blue?  The brown?

We’ve been stuck here so long we’ve changed.

It’s visible now.

If only the world.  If only. 

And us running along, skateboarding, riding heavy bicycles.

Us charting our improvements.

Find the hammer in the toolbox, find the pliers.

Take a minute to stroll around the driveway.

We could put in a koi pond.

I won’t mind taking care of you after the surgery.

I promise I won’t complain about the noise of the machine. 

Us finding everything we want at our feet.

You even found a twenty in the gutter once, remember?