Conclusively by Fanny Howe

Conclusively

 

The night was almost too long to bear

Then there was evidence of mercy—a passing car—

milky air—and I could see

dry walls & gravel on the way to the highway

Atlantic for its grays

 

Loss is the fulfillment of the Law

Space collected on a long line

 

I was eliminated as a locus of mothering—

a she—physical but imaginary as a restless daughter

 

Why this body and not another

 

The one who came to destroy the works of women—their

offspring—

knew how many people were resisting incarnation

He counted on them by accommodating them

 

Guilt relieving guilt

is the get of killers whose mouths shine

I can't say enough about this—red because sore

& polished because wet

 

One died to become the spirit-guide

Before that time

there were second persons in everything

Then saints, then no one

to guide anyone to heaven

Cosmic expansion has gone on in its preferred direction

 

I can hear the hour, this never

happened to me before

One day I will shake the blue sky from my hair

and slip back to consciousness—

the things that is always aware

with or without a living creature to share its pleasures

 

Tonight I request the precious gift of final perseverance

shored up in my sheets

not far from a predawn holocaust

of traveling children