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.