Mary Szybist QUOTES

2 " Nothing stays long enough to know. "

― Mary Szybist , Incarnadine: Poems

4 " I carried you a long way

into my mirror, believing you would carry me

back out. "

― Mary Szybist , Incarnadine: Poems

6 " Mary secretly thinks she is pretty and therefore deserves to be loved. "

― Mary Szybist , Incarnadine: Poems

8 " Via Negativa

Sometimes it's too hard with words or dark or silence.
Tonight I want a prayer of high-rouged cheekbones
and light: a litany of back-lit figures,
lithe and slim, draped in fabrics soft and wrinkleless and pale
as onion slivers. Figures that won't stumble or cough:
sleek kid-gloved Astaires who'll lift
ladies with glamorous sweeps in their hair—
They'll bubble and glitter like champagne.
They'll whisper and lean and waltz and wink effortlessly
as figurines twirling in music boxes, as skaters in their dreams.

And the prayer will not be crowded.
You'll hear each click of staccato heel
echo through the glassy ballrooms—too few shimmering skirts;
the prayer will seem to ache
for more. But the prayer will not ache.
When we enter, its chandeliers and skies
will blush with pleasure. Inside
we will be weightless, and our goodness will not matter
in a prayer so light, so empty it will float. "

― Mary Szybist , Granted

10 " I cannot find
a picture of you in my mind

to land on. "

― Mary Szybist , Incarnadine: Poems

12 " Annunciation: Eve to Ave

The wings behind the man I never saw.
But often, afterward, I dreamed his lips,
remembered the slight angle of his hips,
his feet among the tulips and the straw.

I liked the way his voice deepened as he called.
As for the words, I liked the showmanship
with which he spoke them. Behind him, distant ships
went still; the water was smooth as his jaw—

And when I learned that he was not a man—
bullwhip, horsewhip, unzip, I could have crawled
through thorn and bee, the thick of hive, rosehip,
courtship, lordship, gossip and lavender.
(But I was quiet, quiet as
eagerness—that astonished, dutiful fall.) "

― Mary Szybist , Incarnadine: Poems

14 " You're the head injury I've always longed for,
what I call thinking. "

― Mary Szybist , Granted

16 " The Technique of the Lifelike

I had imagined death thrillingly:
my arms held behind to restrain their frivolous occasions,
the whole of me bending
like a tall yellow lily before you.

Yet set see how my hands go on with their thoughts.
See how I fold and fold my handkerchief.

I am not a great lady.
I don't swoon with love.

My stricken, I cannot render you as you
move quickly toward your skillful execution,
your shoulders tossing their indifference to the dark,
your face overlaid with stage effects.
You grow irresistibly small. Your hands and feet expire.
This is where sculpture also fails, this is where I turn
wholly unattached and without debt.

What is the use of crowning you in glory?

Now my fingers make bowls for rain: in your honor: hope for nothing.
We knew our disposition long ago. "

― Mary Szybist , Granted

18 " What if the inanimate were forced into motion? "

― Mary Szybist , Granted

20 " I said no—and then it was abuzz inside me,
all wings, restless— "

― Mary Szybist , Granted