Kristin Macintyre
perhaps
“At this hour the heart is almost mine”—William Wordsworth
If the day shows itself
everywhere, all sides desperate
undressed; if it simple
varnished with light; if light
a creature baffled; if the body
rivered with blood to stave the quiet;
if a song unknown
thaws the valley; if &
if it echoes tomorrow & if
my body perched here like a butterfly
on a rose—full bloom; if the rose
doesn’t move at all, doesn’t
even feel it; if the butterfly’s wing
all skeleton & sail; if it piped
with blood; if cirque assembled;
if moon; if molecules
hum ‘round the body, tremble
& grandeur still knocking; if
my voice goes polished
through the hills; if it gleams
youthful despite; if the changeful
earth in need of companion
& my organed body
hungers back.
*
Then moon beckons
sun, the iris—every circle
holds time, deep; then
you ever & appear;
then the hour will suffice;
then wonderment; then milkweed;
then heart sewn whole inside
chrysalis; then wingspan;
then the ocean never shores; then
no edge & I must
sorrow it; then a name—
spined & frail—glints
like an empty lighthouse, vacant
shine; then I shelter you
no matter the vaulted sky; then horizon
holds like bathwater; then despair
a human lit within; then I want
the body, its soft bend &
asking; then mine here
ruined & aglow.
*
If the valley’s mist still
curling in my lungs; if too
the wren; if air a small
instrument of wonder;
if the skull a cavern laden
with atoms & bulbs
of light; if always room
for the empire, its jewelry;
if mystery trinket dredged
up from the ocean;
if it appears ready-shined, a dimension
begging welcome; if
something lurks deep within
the well, circles there then stills;
if I lower myself down,
see the water plain
against the stone; if it looks
back, no eyes; if I sorry
the bones; if the ventricles of the soul
wide enough to crouch within; if
the chambers plenty & more
& if the animal—
intricate fawn or sky—
lies down on the forest’s floor
simple magic seldoms
the knowing, slows
the pulse.
*
Then birth in the corn field,
no vantage point save the heart
its mezzanine; then ever
& before; then the newborn
plum & flesh; a wet leaf
clutches another; then miniature
imagination unfurl the sky;
then from the dark lush, the cradle
born; then logic the bud—
its trumpet & solitude—
dismantled in the sweet
wind; then slow & deliberate; then I
carry on; then—inhabited
by one’s own ghost—the bones haunt
themselves;
then desire mangled inside
the body like lightning
run through ocean
or a crown of hatchlings
in the church spire;
then the bell pines & the sky may.
*
If the morning always comes
fearless gaunt; if the sky
starved flamingo & citrus;
if the lake true reflects
the flame; if I dream
the distance between, cascade
upward into pools of sunset;
if I heaven a floodplain; if
forgetting best; if time
a thing to be reascended; if we—
travelling toward who
knows what—our bodies hung
like ripening fruit—sun-spotted
& dappled unthinking; if my eye
the size of a thick cherry
miscarries the seed; if the savage
air allows; if I uncertain enshrine you
like wild garlic hung the wall
for looking; if I stay here perhaps,
perhaps, hallelujah everything
for all the dormant years
of the universe have come
to rest in the shallows
of my mind.
*
(In the deep,
do I bend concave like a palm
cupped for a baby bird—
little chick fastened
with wings? Is my heart
a glade for constellation,
red-womb nursery
for the sky? Am I vicious
blooming inward? Sweet pith
& rind? Will my body—
ancient root &
vale—home another?
Will there be no returning?
Do I remember
you? Our sleeping spines
hardened ampersands
in the night? Is the sun
inside me? How
does the light fabric itself?
Is the lush of summer
laden too in winter’s sleeping?
& do I—little solitude,
stranger coming home—find
myself immensely here,
though the deep doesn’t answer
but is always asking.)
Kristin Macintyre holds an MFA from Colorado State University. Her work has been published in, or is forthcoming from, Mud Season Review, Sugar House Review, Ruminate, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee and serves as an associate editor at Colorado Review. When she is not writing, she teaches freshman composition and drinks coffee in her small garden.