Massachusetts
We fought in Salem,
as she nosed the rented car
through streets that
stubbornly refused to match
the squiggled lines
accordioning from my lap.
She pressed me for direction
as I spun the folding paper
like a compass point,
urged me for instruction
as I traced the lines like Braille,
my fingers blinded,
tapping out the spell of history;
I could not navigate this town.
How could I explain
the pall of Salem?
There’s not an inch on Earth
that isn't steeped in blood—
corpses pushing up the cobblestones
in every town,
and the buildings that blunt the sky
are girdered in bone.
One could travel anywhere
and feel that chill,
the hovering of ghosts
above the landscape,
the past’s damp breath
against the ear.
This town, though,
descended like a shroud
upon my holiday;
Salem,
its rectilinearity
compressed the ribbon of my spine
and sealed my thighs
like doorways to a crypt;
Salem,
its somber abnegation,
grimmest reprobation
sought to suck me to a hollow shell
through which the vengeful cries of God
then could be heard.
My lover, steering wheel in hand,
stared into narrow streets
with the eyes of a dark bird.
“Which way,” she cawed, “which way?”
But mine glowed with the blankness
of a woman swaying from a noose,
clothing asunder,
curses drowning in an airless throat,
spirit driven from its home;
it circled now above our heads.
The useless atlas crumpled at my feet,
it could not lead me to a place
where threat did not bear down like heavy stones;
we fought in Salem.
Terry Wolverton, “Massachusetts” from Mystery Bruise. Copyright © 1999 by Terry Wolverton. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source:
Mystery Bruise
(Red Hen Press, 1999)
