THERE’S THE LIFE I LIVE
I could feel them looking up at me—
imaginary customers in a lightly furnished room—
as I scribbled orders on a small pad of paper.
I was nine, bringing make-believe food
to people in a hurry or on vacation. One, I remember,
was grieving. Another, I could tell, was in love.
Sometimes I imagine myself at ninety, somewhere north
forever cold, cradling a doll—my mind
as demented as my father’s is now. The doll’s eyes
opening and closing—making a soft clicking
sound, like an upturned beetle trying to right itself.
My daughter, neither born nor conceived,
splits my life in two directions. I like my life,
who I’ve become and who I love. Still, my mind
bears a creek deep enough for swimming,
children’s shoes piling up by the back door.
My sorrow is as real as I am. Sometimes
I barely feel it—the way an animal, hibernating
in winter, might be cut and barely bleed.
Other times, the daughter I never had cups her hands
around fireflies—a glass jar on the grass beside her—
and asks Why doesn’t night stay in the jar?
Joanna Macy says we must face our despair,
look right at it. Which is why I looked at George,
Hawaiian tree snail, last of his kind, dead
the first of the year. His death, symbolic
as it was real. When you give something a name,
people pay attention, and everyone said
he must have been lonely. Here’s something
I can’t name: the peace I felt while looking at his photo.
As if looking was a kind of love. Not enough,
but more than nothing at all. My daughter
is a lovely fiction. And god. What shall I do
with god? There’s a story about a priest
held hostage for three years—how, every day,
he celebrated communion with his fellow prisoners.
Body of Christ broken for you, as he distributed
the invisible bread. Blood of Christ shed for you,
pretending to lift a chalice of wine. Everyone said
what happened was real. My sorrow twists dolls
out of willow, buries them in the shade of an old tree.
My daughter presses her hands over my eyes.
Now you see me, now you don’t. The doll’s eyes
open and close. I’m happier than this poem says I am.
And also sadder. Maybe this will be enough: at ninety,
walking through snow, holding what isn’t there
until what isn’t there calls my name.
INTERVIEW
Tell me about yourself.
My mother is dead.
I write poems about her.
Sometimes it feels like she is alive.
It’s a game we play.
I play. She watches.
Always, she is watching.
What was she like?
She was beautiful.
What else?
She was my mother.
And?
She sang to us.
She took us shoe shopping at Gately’s on 53rd.
She drove a blue Karmann Ghia.
She had her hair done every Tuesday.
She helped people. Out there,
in the world, she helped people.
And?
At night, she disappeared.
She was in the house,
she was not in the house.
She looked past everything that was in front of her.
What was she looking for?
I don’t know.
Did it scare you, this looking?
It scared me. It didn’t scare me.
Which answer is true?
Yes, it scared me.
BACKSTORY
When owls hunt at night
they see our version of day
shadowed by clouds; concurrence
of dark and light. Like the gods
I memorized as a child—
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
How I learned the Creed
“by heart” as if love must be
drilled into us. Father Almighty,
Maker of all things visible
and invisible. I could recite
any number of statistics—
God of God, Light of Light—
one in three women
assaulted. Growing up,
I could press my ear
to any wall in our house,
and hear the murmuring
of male voices, like a swarm
of bees. Begotten, not made,
being of one substance
with the Father.
LOVE POEM
I love how the words
My Mother and I
are like a door, slightly open,
the darkness itself
peeking out.
I love the hunger
of a baby bird
showing its red infinity
to the world. I love
three kinds of consciousness—
flesh, ghost, divine.
I love the blue vein
beneath the skin
of my right wrist—
how it forgave me
immediately.
Lisa Dordal is the author of Mosaic of the Dark, which was a finalist for the 2019 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Robert Watson Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, RHINO, Best New Poets, Ninth Letter, CALYX, The Greensboro Review, and Vinyl Poetry. She teaches in the English Department at Vanderbilt University.