5.5 Shiley Long
The deep blue water of the open sea far from land is the color of emptiness…
–The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson
You came to us breathless,
swaying in a net
of tangled genes, unable to go
or stay. Our ears rang with fear–
no suckle, no grasp, no growth.
What could we do
but make underwater gestures
at your tremors?
Light doesn’t reach your depths.
Your genes
hold only a teaspoon of the ocean
you float in.
I slip this curved tube
into the soft hole
at the base of your throat.
O, my swimmer,
this is what I can do for you.
In this open sea,
I’m watching the bubbles
to see which way is up.
(With grateful acknowledgement to Beloit Poetry Journal where this poem first appeared.)
Showering My Son
Now over one hundred pounds,
your soft body like the lead drape
a technician places before an x-ray.
Like Titian’s Venus of Urbino, white and pink–
sans all that hair, sans the sentience in the eyes.
Every day for almost twenty-four years,
my arms under your shoulder blades and knees,
I scoop you out of bed, pivot you
to the blue-mesh chaise on wheels.
Your three stomata–a constellation
from throat to belly to bladder. Oh, the way
plastic meets the flesh. Our little mystery,
our science experiment, our boy. Let us
wheel to the shower now. I’ll sluice warm
water over your chest, little tuft of hair.
I’ll lift each arm and rinse your musky
man odor. I’ll soap your groin, your legs,
and your rocker bottom feet with those
toes crossed for good luck. I’ll shampoo
your hair, a sort of translucence. I’ll shave
your chin, press a warm cloth gently
to each eye, the whorl of each ear,
the nape of your neck under the trach tie.
And then, the swaddle of towels,
the wheeling back to bed, and we’ll
become After the Bath by Degas–
the hairbrush and the awkward limbs.
I’ll lotion your knobby knees, thin shins,
each little finger that has never held
anything. I’ll fluff your pillow,
cover you with your soft old blanket,
read you a poem. I’ll be Frank O’Hara,
made for the lunchtime ritual of the city,
made for kangaroos, aspirins, beachheads, and biers.
“These things are with us every day,” he says.
Made for the daily touch, for the reminder–
“You really are beautiful!” he says.
(With grateful acknowledgement to Beloit Poetry Journal where this poem first appeared.)
Melissa McKinstry holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and Orison’s Best Spiritual Literature, and appear in Rattle, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rust & Moth, december, Tahoma Literary Review, SWWIM, Nimrod International, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
What could we do / but make underwater gestures / at your tremors? An elegant, touching tribute to your son.