Wednesday Poem

It’s the same house, same rugs, same wallpaper, and bedroom repeating;

same dresser; same rocker. Same window and frame, repeating.

Same birds at the pane, same pots and pans, and—on the alarm clock,

the wall clock, the phone clock—the same time, repeating

each hour’s increment in a lived life. But, This is no life, each day like

before and to come, repeating.

The furniture set in a known pattern. The rugs there, like always, inking

the blueprint of home, repeating

jewel tones on the floor, but what was once north–south now seems to lie

east–west—who moved the rugs?—in sum, repeating

the familiar, but sideways. Your inner axis has shifted, the landmarks

somehow changed but the same, you repeating

Why do they keep moving the rugs?  The desk, the chair, your keys?

Home its own balm, repeating

the familiar, but neither keys nor your purse can be found—I know

I just had them—repeating

the questions yields the same, that is, no real answers. Your sense of taste

gone, like eating chum, repeating

the same million small motions: fork to plate then mouth, then back down,

always the same, repeating

the flavor of cardboard. You used to love to cook, that joyous jazz variation-

on-a-theme now a repeating

like pages of musical staffs, xeroxed blank with no notes. Lately, you refuse

to eat anything at all. In a poem, repeating

lines compose a refrain and, echoed again and again, the sum of refrains

is a song. But there is also empty repeating:

zero plus zero plus zero still zero, a void. No accretion, no growth, no life,

no thrum. Then again, birds—some, repeating

one clear note, are said to singing without tune—and, the same set of sounds

from a beaten drum, repeating

means nothing and everything at the same time. The gene runs in families

and can be followed like breadcrumbs, repeating

the precise map for getting lost, down through generations. She took the same

route to work on the town tram, a repeating

my sister relied on. We rely on a plum to taste purple when our teeth break

its skin. Some numbers go on ad infinitum, repeating

that reminds us of architecture and God. Rings of a tree, whorls of a shell,

sections of a lime, repeating

a sequence that re-enacts growth and change. Meiosis, mitosis, Eve cleaved

from Adam, other kinds of repeating

so life can go on. We are “pattern-seeking animals,” Hass says, and even

atheists pray in a jam, repeating

lessons learned as a child: “Now I lay me” like the promise of mercy, like mercy

itself, soothing and warm, you repeating

your talisman against terror. After your nap, I worry you’ll wake confused,

but then you resume, repeating

Where are my keys? Why do they keep moving the rugs? Always theft and loss

the theme, repeating.

They say you’ll forget my name, and your own. How to talk, small mercy

then, you no longer doomed to repeating

your aching questions. They say you’ll forget how to swallow, to breathe—

O God, will you forget to breathe?—just succumb, repeating

the pause in place of the heartbeat? The doctor says keep things simple

and flat, no drang or sturm, repeating

“Is it nice there today,” and “Have the tulips bloomed,” conversations dull

with the same datum repeating

catechism and cliché. You no longer work on your dollhouses, potting trees

the size of your thumb, repeating

postage-stamp paintings on walls, building one-inch-to-the-foot the lavish life

you never had or presumed, repeating

a litany of loss enlarged from what-was to what-will-never-be. The Christmas

tree shadowbox in simulacrum repeating

the childhood obsessions. Some of your dollhouses have tiny dollhouses

within them, repeating

themselves in infinite regression. All that helpless sap and surge of creation,

your xylem and phloem repeating

what to make of a diminished thing. You say you’ll burn them come spring,

without reflection or qualm, the future repeating

and eating the past. It’s happening so fast: a page torn, a book lost, then

whole libraries gone dumb, repeating

erasure until only erasure remains. O trochee, lilting your 10-beat line.

O river, O iamb repeating

the tide. Bishop called loss an “art.” I last saw you at home in October,

a glorious autumn repeating

saffron and scarlet against azure sky. Outside now, a robin taps at the pane,

ravished by her own image, an eye-rhyme repeating—

there’s been one bird each spring. Some beat their beaks bloody and die,

some stay for days, numb with repeating

their broken routine. Who moved the keys? Who moved the goddamn keys?

Your patient husband is grim, repeating

they’re-in-a-safe-place-so-we-can-keep-you-safe. We are all of us trapped

under a great dome repeating

our words and the cries of wild birds. This is harder in some ways, he says,

than Vietnam, repeating

his pledge to stay till the end. He tries to give you small pleasures, picking

and handing you the plum repeating

all you can recall of lush purple juice run down your chin, but at best,

it’s a dim meme repeating

as holograph plums eaten before. Soon, where are my keys will dwindle

to where keys, the totem repeating

as keys, then just key—what matters, the way out of labyrinth and code.

A chant or psalm, repeating

open vowels like water or rain. Luck—the river in poker, the silver ball

spun at the wheel’s rim—can be repeating

until it turns, and isn’t it possible to hear a persistent tune as anthem,

not ear-worm? Can’t repeating

strengthen a seam, or knit a long row? After you fell, I imagined you there

on the floor, the refrigerator’s hum repeating

its cold comfort until the ambulance came. Your husband cradling you

on the linoleum, repeating

presence in absence in presence in absence—cognitive dissonance—

or an inscrutable charm repeating

its mysteries. Your hip and arm are mostly healed. The house is still there,

but an interior door slams shut every second, an alarm repeating

its warning: all doors soon will be sealed. Where we stand in an earthquake

is an empty doorframe. Soon, repeating

itself will disappear: all language flown, a slaughtered lamb,

a shattered paradigm. Will your repeating

heart just—miss its cue? Will you forget how to swallow? O Fates, come, come,

/ Cut thread and thrum, repeating

its end-times refrain. Your jacks and pick-up sticks—you still love any game

—played now with your left arm, repeating

that makes of small movements an art, like dance. Your little jokes,

like the “ALZ tip jar”—now crammed—repeating

the ring of each coin dropped in. You pull my leg when I call, pretending

to forget who I am, repeating

Becky who? Becky who? until we both laugh, the sounds that sound so much

like crying but with a whetted edge; in time, repeating

a knife against stone will bring forth a terrible blade. O sweet sad funny sister,

you are the bird who flies away in my dream, repeating

its looping script on the blank page of sky. An unhooded hawk, a wild bird
freed. Calling Key? Key? Key?—repeating, repeating, repeating
..