Miracle of Bubbles

Miracle of Bubbles
by Barbara Goldberg


A woman drives to the video store
to rent a movie. It is Saturday night,
she is thinking of nothing in particular,
perhaps of how later she will pop popcorn
or hold hands with her husband and pretend
they are still in high school. On the way home
a plane drops from the sky, the wing shearing
her roof of her car, killing her instantly.
Here is a death, it could happen to any of us.
Her husband will struggle the rest of his days
to give shape to an event that does not mean
to be understood. Since memory cannot operate
without plot, he chooses the romantic -- how young
she was, her lovely waist, or the ironic -- if only
she had lost her keys, stopped for pizza.

At the precise moment the plane spiraled
out of control, he was lathering shampoo
into his daughter's hair, blond and fine
as cornsilk, in love with his life, his
daughter, the earth (for "cornsilk" is how
he thought of her hair), in love with the miracle
of bubbles, how they rise in a slow dance,
swell and shimmer in the steamy air, then
dissolve as though they never were.



"The Miracle of Bubbles" by Barbara Goldberg, from Cautionary Tales. (c) Dryad Press, 1990.

Re-hash. Ho hum.

So this is how it's done, I watch her
aaaaaaaaaaIf the wounds dry up, the words die with them.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--Stephen King, The Body

She sleeps with her mouth open,
and I would watch her
like she has something to say
I wait for it

But she never does, she's not one to talk now
in her sleep or awake

I have tried to decipher
these silences like overcast skies
or her bright talk once--
the sudden movement of clouds
to let the sun through, or thunder

Her moods not like the weather:
thunderstorms made her happy
or at least I think so
watching her

Pressed against the windows now
mouth again open
again silent

So this is how it's done, I watch her
The fog of her breath on the glass
appear, disappear in rhythm
like catch and release--
a heart at goodbye.


#
A re-hash of one part of a three-part poem I wrote last year. Kept the title and the epigraph(?), despite retaining only one-third of the original. The other two were blah, and needed work.

And I need sleep.

Confessions

Ari ay:

(Isa ka Pag-ako)

Ari ay: Kabudlay magsulat.

Masugod sa wala, kag matapos

Man sa wala—Walay pulos

Ining pagpa-utwas. Luwas

Ipakita nga wala

Unod akon dughan,

Kubos akong dila.

Ara ay. May guinahambal

Inang mga tinaga.

Ining babayi, may guinahandum

Nga indi matapna.

Pamati bala.

Ang mga tinaga may buot silingon.

Ining babayi, ay! Salabayon.

***

Here:

(A Confession)

Here: It is difficult to write.

To begin with nothing, and end

With nothing—Worthless,

This utterance. Revealed

Only my heart, my mouth,

Their emptiness.

There. Those words

Are telling.

This girl, she dreams,

But nothing.

Hear this:

The words have meaning.

The girl—bah!—

Romanticizing.

#