Two poems
BY Matthew Tierney
The Eclipse Chaser
Always got a soft spot
for your first: Kenya, 1981,
six minutes of nirvana packed
into my noggin and parcelled out
over the worst of my everyday—
open houses for fixer-uppers,
clients’ tears, rubber cheques, snags
in my pantyhose, till Java in ’83
restocked my memory with a swath
of E-time, just enough fuel for
a thank-God-no-kids divorce.
Mexico got me off the bottle,
come Romania I was already
Agent No. 1 four years
running. I’ve clocked 26 minutes
all told, in the black, yet
it’s the donkey’s years in realty
that sweep past in a finger snap.
A little secret, I’m old enough
to be your mother, listen close—
nothing, nothing will rouse
those rosy little cheeks of yours
quite like a total eclipse.
Do us a favour, dear, poke
the fire. Nice, takes the fight
to that creak there, behind my knees.
Truer words … nights like these
are a heavy cross. All your lovers
pass in the glaze, the promises
nearly kept, their meaning lost,
each face ablaze in beseech
of what-you-know-not.
Take my word: noon tomorrow,
when that opal necklace is clasped
over the new moon’s nape, you’ll
have your question; and when
the chromosphere forges a ring
’round that black disc, last light
a cherry diamond brighter than
bright, you’ll be all answer.
Near as one can get? Eyes
closed, tight now! On the back
of your lids, the corona,
a boys’ choir in white robes
sustaining a high C. Keep ’em
shut, it’s poetry or nothin’, missy,
that char eye in the day sky, pure
gobsmack. I see how you frown,
the doubt in your shoulders.
There’s nothing more to tell.
T-minus 10 hours till
we glimpse light once forbidden.
That’s all, dear. The two of us,
timeless bridesmaids of the sun.
Admittance
Slipped into with a breast stroke, twill tape tied at the nape,
if nimble enough, around your waist. The rear gap, a fig leaf,
lets in an emollient breeze. Hospital gowns, the colour of
semi-private, of night’s seams. Hours wound like copper
between rounds, Tylenol 3s, Gravol to keep it down. One
bed over, the fellow is always young, in the scheme of things
a pipsqueak, certain of discharge. Him also, ministered to
by the able-bodied, unimpressed until the end: he’ll crawl
into it. Everywhere that sea serpent green, thread counts
wearing thin, so many washings in bleach. This won’t be
the gown I pass in, a few cycles still: release and admittance,
release, admittance. The ability to adapt, unremitting, given
knowledge of the limit, 52 cell renewals, no more, maybe
less. Cursed, blessed, or hung up in between? It’s better
than nothing only if considered a choice. Next, the last—
my new bunkmate, he snores, in the wake his encased femur
knitting. Tomorrow, I’m for home. Civilian clothes. Cotton
and synthetics, blended to hold shape. Thermal underwear,
wool sweater, heating layers within, my nuclei making a go
of it, ghosting another version I labour to flourish, and forget.
