AND YOU, ANGRY ONE

And you, angry one, down to splitting roaches

between the thumbnails of the moon

to make something flower in your poverty

because the soil you’re rooted in

keeps coming up snake-eyes and stinging nettles.

You whose heart is swarmed by fire ants

like the corpse of a hummingbird

that was lighter than gravity and faster than light

until it sipped from the sugar-coated feeder

of the double-dealer who spiked its drink.

You for whom the sound of life

is the snarling of a blue chainsaw

in an old growth forest of rootless trees

living in tent city on the cutting edge of grace

driving nails through your heartwood

to keep from being felled by those

who are more at fault than you are

for why the birds no longer sing in the morning.

You who weep like acid rain

on the bells and the gravestones

you keep writing your name on

and keep one dark card

like the Tarot up your sleeve

to trump the game your playing now

as if you were bound to lose your will to win

by pushing your chair back from the table

like an exculpatory suicide with nothing left to bet on.

I learned a long time ago from you

there’s a terrorist in your roots

that keeps twisting your nerves like candy kisses

with short fuses and blasting caps

that can go off in anyone’s face like a beaver dam

for nothing at all except trying to build

a small eco-system in the wrong place;

for trying to sow seeds in your wounds

where the plough of the moon cut into your flesh

and left the planting to the wind and the weeds;

for trying to turn all that pain

into something you could harvest

like golden loaves of bread

fresh from the ovens of a volcano

like small islands of life

cooling on the windowsills of your magmatic rage.

For years I’ve winched my heart up from a wishing-well

to pour sweet water on your burns

and watched you turn into a steam engine

whenever I suggested the tracks on your arms

were the wrong gauge

for two parallel lines to ever meet

like predestination in the wrong seat of here and now.

So many futures I could have had with you

that have learned to live outside the womb

like embryos in exile

like homeless thresholds no one ever crossed.

Strange and sad sometimes

when I look at you

to feel the loss of things I never had to lose.

Me in my sanctuary

and you in your asylum

though we’ve maintained mutual embassies in both

with high walls and barred windows

that have kept the measure

of how close we could have come to being lovers

instead of these refugees

seeking shelter from one another

like two storm birds under the overturned lifeboats

that saved no one from drowning

off the same shipwrecked coast.

PATRICK WHITE