Seth Simons - Poem Series
Pandemic Variations
I. First as Tragedy
Everything seemed bad
& was. I lost the weight
I wanted to lose. Fall came
in an explosion of dead trees.
Boom! went the trees—I kid.
They went quietly as old dogs.
Cheese softened. Little men
scaled the porticoes & pointed
their guns at us. I was offered
as sacrifice—no, I offered myself.
Aha! Foolish little men, always
stuffing sand into your pockets.
Here is one fistful more.
Everything seemed bad
& was worse. I couldn't
sleep. Teacups shattered
all night long & smog fell,
crystallized & diced us
from within. I rose above
it all, or was hoisted.
Some days you’re executioner,
others . . . Two centuries
later the monks untied me
& I asked for you. For who?
I had already forgotten . . .
Everything seemed bad
& was fine. Bread rose.
We made love in the kitchen,
on the patio. For a time light
was not something we saw by
but dissolved into—snowfields,
pastures . . .
to have seen so many ghosts
you no longer think of them
as ghosts, more as shells
under your feet, shells
becoming sand . . .
& this dread
like bats in the chimney. So be it.
We shook dirt from our boots;
we shook dew. At last the fleet
arrived, but not to save us.
Everything seemed bad
& then it was over.
& it was better.
& no one screamed.
& rain plinked
against the rooftops.
& filled the gutters.
& filled the streets.
& we were two frogs
on separate lily pads.
hello! I said.
who? you said.
& the river swelled . . .
II. Second as Tragedy
Everything seemed great
& I couldn’t see it, my eyes
coated in a thin slime
undecipherable by scientists
& sages alike—malodorous,
warm as honey & giving off
a faint radioactive glow.
Shuttled from specialist
to specialist I developed
a sort of echolocation
by whose means I mapped
perfectly the marbled institute
to which I was inevitably
condemned. No, abandoned—
left like seeds in some Norwegian vault
to sit motionless until the future
cracked & I was called to save it.
Or so I told myself. Alone, I sent
my little beeps & they returned
magnificent balustrades, lunettes,
bay windows & the unreachable
country I vowed to destroy.
Everything seemed great
& I hated it. Implacable
as a starfish, I told whoever
passed what I thought
of their happiness, how
I considered it a form
of torture crueler than
the sun, how like the sun
its cruelty astonished me,
blinded me, wrested me
daily from the sleep I love.
They laughed at me; they
floated past me like pollen
crusted on the surface of a lake.
I would have to drown myself
in their happiness, maybe then
they would listen.
Everything seemed great
until I got closer. Trees
drooped. The edges of what
I loved peeled like wallpaper.
My mother & father were not
my mother & father but an artist’s
rendering of my mother & father
below an umbrella, a clear umbrella
splattered to the point of opacity.
What a disappointment! I said.
What a disappointment! they said.
Walking back to the hotel I pretended
I was not the sum of my mistakes
but the remainder, each one siphoned
out of me like venom, only a few more
(love, ashes; how I pictured us—) to go . . .
Everything seemed great
& I didn’t want it.
Or I wanted more.
Or I wanted what I had
lost. Or was losing. Or what
like fog receding left me
with a clarity so clear
it sliced me open. & what
spilled out was less the shape
of me than shapes I’d nearly
grown into—old skin I dreamed
I might wear once, cruelties I almost
thought forgivable, slights I swore
I'd forgive . . . What was it you told me,
last we told each other anything?
I’ve forgotten. That’s not true.
I remember perfectly. It’s what I said,
it’s what I said back I’ve let vanish.
And the meadowgrass, shaking.
And the meadow.