Home > Work > Magdalene: Poems
1 " Someone hanging clothes on a line between buildings, someone shaking out a rug from an open window might have heard hammering, one or two blocks away and thought little or nothing of it. "
― Marie Howe , Magdalene: Poems
2 " I liked Hell,I liked to go there alonerelieved to lie in the wreckage, ruined, physically undone.The worst had happened. What else could hurt me then?I thought it was the worst, thought nothing worse could come.Then nothing did, and no one. "
3 " and he: (and this was almost unbearable)he saw me see him,and I saw him see me.He said something like, You're going to be ok now,or, It's been difficult hasn't it,but what he said mattered only a little.We met — in our mutual gaze — in between a third place I'd not yet been. "
4 " When I walked across a room I saw myself walkingas if I were someone else,when I picked up a fork, when I pulled off a dress,as if I were in a movie. It’s what I thought you saw when you looked at me.So when I looked at you, I didn’t see youI saw the me I thought you saw, as if I were someone else.I called that outside—watching. Well I didn’t call it anythingwhen it happened all the time.But one morning after I stopped the pills—standing in the kitchenfor one second I was inside looking out.Then I popped back outside. And saw myself looking.Would it happen again? It did, a few days later.My friend Wendy was pulling on her winter coat, standing by the kitchen doorand suddenly I was inside and I saw her.I looked out from my own eyesand I saw: her eyes: blue gray transparentand inside them: Wendy herself!Then I was outside again,and Wendy was saying, Bye-bye, see you soon,as if Nothing Had Happened.She hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t known that I’d Been Therefor Maybe 40 Seconds,and that then I was Gone.She hadn’t noticed that I Hadn’t Been There for Months,years, the entire time she’d known me.I needn’t have been embarrassed to have been there for those seconds;she had not Noticed The Difference.This happened on and off for weeks,and then I was looking at my old friend John:: suddenly I was in: and I saw him,and he: (and this was almost unbearable)he saw me see him,and I saw him see me.He said something like, You’re going to be ok now,or, It’s been difficult hasn’t it,but what he said mattered only a little.We met—in our mutual gaze—in betweena third place I’d not yet been. "