Vacation, Genesis

By Mary Hawley

/ Poetry /      

This is how we begin: highway signs 

in two languages, our bags thrown 

into the back seat. Miles of rain,

brown walls of a room, your mouth

on mine. Bonjour! a guest sings out 

at the inn, two beautiful notes. You say 

we’re lucky, I say it’s a gift. Either way 

we’re drunk on catalpa blossoms, 

the slant of the cobbled streets— 

till the third day. I get lost in a cul-de-sac, 

a nightmare leaves a stain on the morning. 

My back aches and who could love my wings, 

those furred shrouds, useless for flight? 

When they fished out your heart 

you stole it back, buried it in the garden 

under Venus and Mars. I taste it 

in the little cabbages, in the strawberry’s blood.

Genesis: When the clay dried those people 

looked so ugly next to panthers and daffodils. 

But it was the sixth day and God was tired. 

So we were left to make what beauty 

we could from our sorrows.