Folk Song by Diane Seuss

Folk Song

 

Let me enter the afterlife lithe not plodding. 

Rise out of this heavy peasantry. Lithe 

and cool as a battery-powered flame, 

not fire. My feet

are short and wide. The soles, stained 

with mulberries. I have never been lithe,

streamlined, pedicured, compressed, minimal, ergonomic,

 

silver

fuselage cutting the air. 

In my herringbone skirt and shirttail out, I am a slob.

What is a slob but a knob of thickness, a mushroom

stem, a beer stein Mozart stole from the Hofbräuhaus while writing

Idomeneo.

My stylist, gravity. Memory a tree so loaded with fruit and birds the tips 

 

of the branches rake the ground. 

By lithe I do not mean in body, do I?

Do I mean in soul? 

To be one of those green-eyed ones others refer to as

aquamarine. Empty 

of ancestors. Face clean 

of lipstick smears and other gestures of artifice.

 

Feet a rare triple-A, so narrow there aren’t shoes 

that won’t chafe. Skin easy to tear, 

like Kleenex we turned into carnations for parade floats.

Those drinks from the soda fountain we called Green Rivers.

Green and sweet, without flavor, but delicious.

I am too tired to hold up this heavy self.

Of selfhood I worked so hard to earn. Of work I worked so hard

 

to avoid. Of the working class. My class. Its itches and psychological riches.

Its notions and values and humble achievements.

Of this town which inhabitants speak of with endearments

as if it were a child. As if it’s not like every other brat.

Town with its river, drunk on itself. Its shitty Xmas ornaments 

and fall-down-fucked-up Santa on a raft tethered to the river bank. 

Its tiny museum

 

built around the star of the show, a lamb born with two heads.

Every town has a two-headed something. It doesn’t mean

anything.

You know what? I want to be rich and lithe.

Rich, with a lyric gift and a song 

like a white-throated sparrow. I am vulture-heavy. 

My stories are caskets filled with black feathers,

 

the lids pounded shut with railroad spikes.

The gravedigger is noodling Melba, the widow-woman,

and a hognose is consuming a toy train on cemetery lane.

Let me resurrect beyond the bracken

fronds and the three-legged stool and catgut guitar 

and this two-ton song from the mouth 

of a wax museum troubadour.