annunciation

by marie howe, from the kingdom of ordinary time

even if i don't see it again - nor ever feel it
i know it is - and that if once it hailed me
it ever does -

and so it is myself i want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,

as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn't - i was blinded like that - and swam
in what shone at me

only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself i thought i'd die
from being loved like that.

the promise

by marie howe from what the living do

in the dream i had when he came back not sick
but whole, and wearing his winter coat,

he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if
there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn't break.

his silence was what he could not
not do, like our breathing in this world, like our living,

as we do, in time.
and i told him: i'm reading all this buddhist stuff,

and listen, we don't die when we die. death is an event,
a threshold we pass through. we go on and on

and into light forever.
and he looked down, and then back up at me. it was the look we'd pass

across the kitchen table when dad was drunk again and dangerous,
the level look that wants to tell you something,

in a crowded room, something important, and can't.

the last time

by marie howe, from what the living do

the last time we had dinner together in a restaurant
with white tablecloths, he leaned forward

and took my two hands in his hands and said,
i'm going to die soon. i want you to know that.

and i said, i think i do know.
and he said, what surprises me is that you don't.

and i said, i do. and he said, what?
and i said, know that you're going to die.

and he said, no, i mean know that you are.

what the living do

by marie howe

johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably
     fell down there.
and the drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes
     have piled up

waiting for the plumber i still haven't called. this is the everyday we
     spoke of.
it's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
     pours through

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in here, and
     i can't turn it off.
for weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
     the bag breaking,

i've been thinking: this is what the living do. and yesterday, hurrying
     along those
wobbly bricks in the cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
     wrist and sleeve,

i thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: this is it.
parking. slamming the car door shut in the cold. what you called
     that yearning.

what you finally gave up. we want the spring to come and the winter to
     pass. we want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss - we want more and more and
     then more of it.

but there are moments, walking, when i catch a glimpse of myself in the
     window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and i'm gripped by a cherishing
     so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that i'm
     speechless.
i am living, i remember you.