Christina Matthews poem The Beginning of the End appeared here in October. Christina’s poetry gives voice to different characters, sometimes they are people, other times they are animals, other times they are inanimate. But the voices are always distinctive.
Suddenly the House Is a Marshland
By Christina Matthews
No way out. The door, gone. The windows, barred by branches
of leafless trees. The carpet, a mud-muck, a quicksand
making it impossible to get out of bed.
Ask me if I’m okay, I’ll say: “Yes, I’m fine.”
Turn over, slide my eyes closed, hold my breath against the night
as the swamp rises up in the corners of the bedroom.
The dilemma is the unknown, darling, and “I cannot go on
in love like this,” is what I want to tell you. Dare not explain
the way the giant night grows for me, how the roots of the dead
vine their way under the bed, the kitchen sink, behind the washer,
the spaces between. Nature moving always, and where?
Here, of all places, and maybe it all started here,
where once a small mouse dropped out of the chimney,
its tail like a piece of gum stretching from the trap–
And my meekness in deciding its fate, tossing it
like a Frisbee off the back porch, trap and all. Hoping
I had no role in that beautiful flight.
But tonight when I held your head in my hands,
that all important ball of bone, heavi
est thing I’ve ever held,
est thing I’ve ever held,
I trembled again in the stir of it, knowing sooner or later.
And I let you fall quickly asleep, thinking “Yes, I’m fine.”
And I tried not to breathe as the night cracked open–
the earth crawled in.
Love this!
Very spooky. You should try submitting to abyssandapex.com.