Poem for Friday and Calvert Cliffs

Voices
By Sharon Olds

(for Lucille)

Our voices race to the towers, and up beyond
the atmosphere, to the satellite,
slowly turning, then back down
to another tower, and cell. Quincy,
Toi, Honoree, Sarah, Dorianne,
Galway. When Athena Elizalex calls,
I tell her I'm missing Lucille's dresses,
and her shoes, and Elizabeth says "And she would say,
"Damn! I do look good!'" After we
hang up, her phone calls me again
from inside her jacket, in the grocery store
with her elder son, eleven, I cannot
hear the words, just part of the matter
of the dialogue, it's about sugar, I am
in her pocket like a spirit. Then I dream it —
looking at an illuminated city
from a hill, at night, and suddenly
the lights go out — like all the stars
gone out. "Well, if there is great sex
in heaven," we used to say, "or even just
sex, or one kiss, what's wrong
with that?!" Then I'm dreaming a map of the globe, with
bright pinpoints all over it —
in the States, the Caribbean, Latin America,
in Europe, and in Africa —
everywhere a poem of hers is being
read. Small comfort. Not small
to the girl who curled against the wall around the core
of her soul, keeping it alive, with long
labor, then unfolded into the hard truths, the
lucid beauty, of her song.

15 Feb '10

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I accomplished a reasonable amount on Thursday, though probably not everything I should have considering I am hoping a good chunk of Friday will be lost to seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One (my plans are still somewhat up in the air; both my planned dates, Gblvr and Hufflepants, had potential timing/location/scheduling issues that we have not fully ironed out as of this writing, though I am more confident now that we'll get there than I was several hours earlier). I found out from my mother that my father and I were headed to the mall at roughly the same time, and he ended up taking me out for frozen yogurt with walnuts and berries, then we walked around and I took care of some chores -- bargain sweatpants at Old Navy being the main one because I had only one pair of sweatpants with pockets, but also Crate & Barrel's lovely holiday collection, which has pretty Judaica as well as all the Christmas stuff.

Evening involved a walk (hence the need for said sweatpants), dinner (French toast made with the awesome Amish-made cherry bread Dementordelta brought us on Monday and cooked by Paul, mmmm), then $#&! My Dad Says, which was worth watching this week just to see William Shatner in bed with Cybill Shepherd, and Nikita, which we didn't realize at first was a rerun but not all of us had seen so we left it on anyway. With help from my club, The Reliables, I managed to finish the Superpoke Pets Thanksgiving quest and collect all my dinner table plushies. Now Jon Stewart is interpreting Glenn Beck ("The Manchurian Lunatic") for us and elucidating how Rupert Murdoch and the Tea Party are the only thing saving America from Communist dissolution, or maybe Nazi dissolution, or maybe Hogwarts, and I can't stop laughing enough to type.

Here are some more photos from Calvert Cliffs State Park last weekend: