Poetry Suite by Dion O’Reilly
“Sometimes, I prayed for the return of my sins.”
Poetry by Dion O’Reilly
+++
Springtime: The Dog Jumps on the Bed and Bites You as We Fuck,
And I Feel Young Again
Sometimes, I prayed for the return of my sins.
Jesus, Let me sin again. I couldn’t help it.
Look at the iconography of my tribe.
Lean long-hairs nailed up like rock stars.
Saints, starving like haute models. Half naked.
Full of arrows. The royal-blue beauty
of the crying mother. Arms crossed
over her bleeding heart.
Like the single mom I once was, bored
of my kids, tired
of staring at the slide, waiting
for an accident.
An eye watched me all day
as I bathed the filthy,
added cheese to dimpled wafers.
Night bulged, darker than water.
But today, the house is quiet. Just you
and the meddlesome dog, whining
like an archangel. Kick her off,
lock her out. She can pester the door.
Babe. Come back here. I don’t love you,
but I’ll pull you in—
my old body, dry as a copperhead.
Let’s fight
with pitted eyes and razor spurs.
Then sleep into each other,
until we’re grafted apple trees—
the softness of our petals
becoming wind. Let’s rise up again,
say goodbye to everything.
+++
Roots
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of roots… is that [they] originate and develop from an inner layer of the mother axis. College Botany, Volume-1 by HC Gangulee, KS Das and CT Datta
...i mean any word
traced to its origin is a small child begging for water. Sam Sax
I. Evolution
The few things that could kill us
when we lived in trees—
Snakes coiled in branches.
Falling. Others of our kind.
Whatever we find out about ourselves
under mounds in the jungle. Stone beds
of the dead, grooved with runnels
for carrying blood. Obsidian knives
to slice through breast bones,
lift our slippery hearts to the sun.
Certain smells like petrol and bitumen.
Toxic and appealing.
The sadness of orphaned prairies—switchgrass
and sideoats still alive under fences. Seed heads
in front of a plow—gloved hands
waving Goodbye, Goodbye.
II. Generation
Memories of my mother’s rough palms
that she spat on
to clean my face. The smell of spit.
The thousand ways I was taught
to smile and shake hands.
My behavior in public. Words falling
like family china from my fingers.
Yellowy photos of broken men who loved me.
Knowing they ruined my children.
My children’s pain displacing my own.
III. Stories
Constantine changing his mind. The angel Jibrīl
looming over a dirt floor in Hira,
Mohammed watching, perplexed.
A herd miles wide we tried to
pile into bones. A blanket of fat pigeons in the sky
we wanted to prick light into.
An Archduke and Duchess, shot. The gorgeous head
of a mushroom cloud over Bikini Atoll.
Layered gelatin sparkling in compote glass
that made a Boer decide
on Apartheid.
The biggest lie about the past
is that it’s past. The present, a wall,
To keep history from swarming
the future.
Watch, as you lean against the redwood,
the starling flits, their flying matched
to any music you can think of.
The roots just below you
sending out their fingers,
trying to hold on to other trees.
+++
Looking
We live our lives in one place
and look in every moment into another— Jane Hirshfield
I used to beg my parents to drive through suburbs,
so I could stare at tract homes, the bland windows
and porticos full of tipped-over trikes. I liked
to parse the three or four different house models,
study the flourishes— garden statues of seven dwarves,
shrubs like poodles, wagon wheels
resting on white-quartz lawns.
It made me sick how much I wanted it—
a mom with fixed-up hair,
a dad in an apron holding a Hamm’s
and flipping spare ribs. A cul-de-sac
full of boys shooting hoops, little girls
holding hands because they couldn’t bear
to unbraid their shared delight.
Different from the dirt farm where we lived,
where I felt lucky to escape, for one day,
the slash of a horsewhip, where
I was told to carry my plate to the floor,
eat my dinner next to five sad mastiffs,
each of us gulping a slab of freshly-butchered bull heart.
I must have been crazy to return to that farm,
to raise my twins there, close
to the smell of mountain lilac and chicken shit.
The woman who looked itchy as she beat me
became a doting grandmother who fed them
homemade cheese on Red Delicious, bought them
pink and blue Oshkosh from catalogues,
walked them through pastures to touch
the nose of a newborn Jersey.
And now, more than half-a-century past, my mother
still stares out the window at the pigsty, curdles
her milk and stirs the whey with a wooden spoon.
And sometimes it’s hard to believe
I’m here too, slouched in the spruced-up barn
near dying oaks and a cow field,
drinking pots of bitter tea and looking at people
on Facebook holding up goblets of yellowy wine
or standing on Half Dome, arms lifted like gods.
I’m here so she can call me if she falls
or needs to talk about the hawk that drops down
and rips the neck of her pampered bantam,
her pain, almost too much to bear.
+++
This morning, a coyote
paced across the path, laughing at us,
light as a ghost, pink tongue resting
on his teeth. My terrier lost her mind
chased him down to the rocky bottomlands.
I couldn’t follow. Could only hear her screaming,
while buzzards tilted above me.
I covered my ears with my palms. Began
walking home. An hour later, she returned.
Limping. Riddled with burs and small punctures.
Why isn’t the well-worn trail enough?
It loops around a meadow. Pricked by birdsong. Live
oaks dripping like metronomes. Ancient pines
swimming in mist. I look back at my house,
and its red paint appears joyous.
Do I look happy? I gave up predators
long ago. Although one left a tooth in the tender
skin of my neck. Oh, stupid dog, I’ll never
blame you. Always looking for
distractions in the fabulous stink of pheromones.
Is Phoenix waiting for me somewhere?
A brick espresso house. An Alanon meeting?
I want more of his presents—
sketch of a mobius strip, tiny handmade
envelopes made of twenty-dollar bills, stuffed
with poetry borrowed from a Persian poet.
I want to hear his lies about my looks. Believe
I have chosen what chose me.
But he escapes. Down the slot canyon.
Stay. Don’t follow, Dion.
+++
Header image courtesy of Haley Craw. To view her artist feature, go here.
Dion O’Reilly has spent much of her life on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She has worked as a waitress, barista, baker, theater manager, graphic designer, and public school teacher. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Sun, Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Bellingham Review, Atlanta Review, Catamaran, and a variety of other literary journals and anthologies, including an upcoming Lambda Literary Anthology. Her work has been nominated for Pushcarts, the Intro Journals Project, and was sent to the judges for The Folio Literary Journal Poetry Contest and the Peseroff Prize.