The Reconstruction

 


Was it the novelty?

the sheer pleasure,
unmasked, unbegged
untempted, in the smile
that rang from his eyes?--
that caused her to trip
-- permit  his 
gaze  passage,
hurried, backward, She--
flustered and frayed..
as he plowed
through mountains bound
of powdering dread
bookish dust...
Always, that smile
as he carved his way
round
shapes that loomed
swollen in her mind
to explode-
The memory of sounds
intimated as words
tottered, hidden and insinuated there,
or rolled languid
as misted spray over fields,
once sprung of long starved glee;
now turned to long torturous planes-
smug and glowing
the corrosive gloat of the Whole-
fields fallen blue-green
Of Summer's self-flattery-
glib and vacant of care.


A thing she could not explain:

 
How  that smile
could linger still
solid,
was a question beyond her:
Brimming awareness,
the regard
of an unmistakable
loving insistance,
a wholly credible hand,
rubbing to soft blur--
unbruisable
            unflappable
unpresumptive of pain.
Tendering
harridan
and harpy
and shrew--
Foiling at every turn
the deadly aim
she parried always forth
with lance
to joust
(this torment, once again
mistaken for moment-
when reading, she squints to decipher)


That his voice
could cling to her
as those nights
was as queer a torment
as promise,
altogether confounding...
One for which she could not say..
compelling
poised and singing
on the scalpel's blade
fallen finally
        to empty space
her fingers in their solitary duty
render open
against the will of cloth,
mapping once more,
the horizontal slash, her hand's length--
sheen of skin pulled tight on rib
embossed waxen seal over truth:
a scooped out and pared away
--hyphenated womanhood...
Such a mystery ...
that the heat
of a countenance could invade
the one place,
she shed all camouflage-
follow her to where she ghosted alone
glimpses of hinted and envied corpulence
that pushed away all the past
advances conveniently
sabotaged and sidestepped
flash-powder rendezvouses
the resigned and expected challenges,
and mulish reckonings...
Forgetting to distinguish
numb self loathing
or the scald
of a green-eyed rejection.
Only that the phantom never left--
A snide and sour Scuppernong
ampoule of gall--
(no matter the thimble's depth)
nor the memory of her wholeness.
nor the tinned toothed shame
embe dded in her chest...
Stares at the Not
of her symmetry
reflective cover
'til her hands fell away
to her sides


"But know I have a scar or two,
 and whole chunks of me removed, as well..."

Nor could she ever account
for the arms that carried,
swung, or tossed her
high by day..
(laughter but another way
to breathe,
tears, to wash)
warmed and rocked
by night
on river rafts
of August moon lit hummings
soft in her hair
wafting tunes sighed
to the Eno's crooked bubble
and drawl

Or how
in the golden light
of fire
his passion roared
to fall on her
like the majestic descent
of geese on evening lakes
from skies of smoldering opal.
as he caught her up,
she found for once
her ascending dawning
in his eyes...

But not before
a wonder as this:

The one
that could lead
them both
down again
to the concave pit
over bone
of their need
and
there, fill..
            and there,
 fill...


Or that
in  morning,
tears
would unseal
forever
her eyes
slowly
translating the sound
of his lips kissing, softly blessing
their unfeeling, no longer
blamable
scars

 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Scuppernong grape: It is a sport of the species Vitis rotundifolia, commonly called muscadine...The scuppernong variety has a tough skin and is bronzy green in color, rather than black or purplish as were its ancestors. Its size, to use traditional Tarheel (North Carolinian) parlance, is "about that of a hog's eye."

 

" the Eno River is part of a triad of rivers that arise in Orange County and then flow eastward through Durham County, forming the northwestern headwaters of the Neuse River in North Carolina"