For a Traveler by Jessica Greenbaum

Mary

Megan

I only have a moment so let me tell you the shortest story,

about arriving at a long loved place, the house of friends in Maine,

their lawn of wildflowers, their grandfather clock and candid

portraits, their gabled attic rooms, and woodstove in the kitchen,

all accessories of the genuine summer years before, when I was

their son’s girlfriend and tied an apron behind my neck, beneath

my braids, and took from their garden the harvest for a dinner

I would make alone and serve at their big table with the gladness

of the found, and loved. The eggplant shone like polished wood,

the tomatoes smelled like their furred collars, the dozen zucchini

lined up on the counter like placid troops with the onions, their

minions, and I even remember the garlic, each clove from its airmail

envelope brought to the cutting board, ready for my instruction.

And in this very slight story, a decade later, I came by myself,

having been dropped by the airport cab, and waited for the family

to arrive home from work. I walked into the lawn, waist-high

in the swaying, purple lupines, the subject of   June’s afternoon light

as I had never been addressed — a displaced young woman with

cropped hair, no place to which I wished to return, and no one

to gather me in his arms. That day the lupines received me,

and I was in love with them, because they were all I had left,

and in that same manner I have loved much of the world since then,

and who is to say there is more of a reason, or more to love?

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins

Mary

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. 

A Wife - at daybreak I shall be by Emily Dickinson

Mary

A Wife—at daybreak I shall be—
Sunrise—Hast thou a Flag for me?
At Midnight, I am but a Maid,
How short it takes to make a Bride—
Then—Midnight, I have passed from thee
Unto the East, and Victory—

Midnight—Good Night! I hear them call,
The Angels bustle in the Hall—
Softly my Future climbs the Stair,
I fumble at my Childhood's prayer
So soon to be a Child no more—
Eternity, I'm coming—Sire,
Savior—I've seen the face—before! 

Trillium by Louise Gluck

Mary

Megan

When I woke up I was in a forest. The dark

seemed natural, the sky through the pine trees

thick with many lights.

I knew nothing; I could do nothing but see.

And as I watched, all the lights of heaven

faded to make a single thing, a fire

burning through the cool firs.

Then it wasn’t possible any longer

to stare at heaven and not be destroyed.

Are there souls that need

death’s presence, as I require protection?

I think if I speak long enough

I will answer that question, I will see

whatever they see, a ladder

reaching through the firs, whatever

calls them to exchange their lives—

Think what I understand already.

I woke up ignorant in a forest;

only a moment ago, I didn’t know my voice

if one were given to me

would be so full of grief, my sentences

like cries strung together.

I didn’t even know I felt grief

until that word came, until I felt

rain streaming from me.

Applesauce by Ted Kooser

Mary

Megan

I liked how the starry blue lid

of that saucepan lifted and puffed,

then settled back on a thin

hotpad of steam, and the way

her kitchen filled with the warm,

wet breath of apples, as if all

the apples were talking at once,

as if they'd come cold and sour

from chores in the orchard,

and were trying to shoulder in

close to the fire. She was too busy

to put in her two cents' worth

talking to apples. Squeezing

her dentures with wrinkly lips,

she had to jingle and stack

the bright brass coins of the lids

and thoughtfully count out

the red rubber rings, then hold

each jar, to see if it was clean,

to a window that looked out

through her back yard into Iowa.

And with every third or fourth jar

she wiped steam from her glasses,

using the hem of her apron,

printed with tiny red sailboats

that dipped along with leaf-green

banners snapping, under puffs

of pale applesauce clouds

scented with cinnamon and cloves,

the only boats under sail

for at least two thousand miles.