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by Vanessa Caruso
I’m known. I’ve suffered the beams
of God’s gaze - Their magnifying glass,
at the right angle, feels like flame. Under
radical regard audacity blooms,
remakes. I have a more real face.
I’m living like a monk.
Little monastic bells are hidden
everywhere: how-do-you-do’s with
the neighbors, my six-year-old asking for
anything, the oven timer beeping
for the same lemon glazed cake
my mom brought to each ballet recital -
the edges crystallizing overnight.
I’m humming all the time the lullaby
I’ve been pining for, and heard once
in birdsong, humming as I twist the dishes
under the tap, humming as I unfold
my spine on our sandstone rug, humming
as I scribble the street numbers of my
favorite wild homes in this tucked-in town,
humming as I fund the heart’s imagination
with my dimes of tithed attention.
I’m interpreting cravings as greetings,
jealousies as clues, and headaches as a
ballad from my body, wooing me to lay off
the striving for an afternoon. There is no
such thing as capital L Lost time, no
learning too slow to count, no
woman so beautiful
I disappear.
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