On the themes of Life Cycle and Epitaph
from Ogie: a Biography
20.
Another summer comes and goes.
I bask outdoors and show my skin
To the last of the sun before fall.
Through the screen door, Ogie
Beckons me to follow.
She has this advice—
Always Fear Death,
Despite Your Notions
Of Courage. You Have
Grown Too Thin Because Of Me,
Because You Pretend To Eat
So I Can Pretend To Be Eating.
I Have Been Twisting My Fingers
All Night But I Have Decided
I Am Leaving. I know, I say.
I could hear you pacing all night.
39.
Ogie liked to watch me as I carved
The meat. She liked to watch me grate
The cheese and garnish our plates
With radish stars. When she stopped
Sitting with me in the kitchen I knew
Something was wrong. I found her
Tucked into the branches of a tamarack
Mouthing strange enchantments, rituals
I could not understand. Rarely did she
Enter the woods without me. Even then
I should have known. I should have seen.
45.
It didn’t help that Ogie’s kitten had lapped
Up all the water, until, stopping with a heavy
Sound of pain, a sound like the discovery of
Stolen gold, she died a consumptive death.
That’s how we wound up with a ghost cat,
Who stayed for a day and left us worse off
Than she’d been before we found her starved.
21.
Ogie was never one to leave
Ceremoniously. She left
And she was gone.
In the months that followed
I cut slivers into all my meat,
Slid clean coins inside.
I had stopped eating the meat
But continued to prepare it
As offerings for the dead.
The wolves came and I helped them
Deliver their young, if not drunk
Then getting there. I like a little
Twist with my grain. Rub the rind
On the rim please, thanks.
40.
My first night without her,
I made a cup of tea, strangled
The bag just to touch the boiling
Water. I dipped my hand in a blue
Mixing bowl filled with ice water,
Made violent waves that lapped
Against the harbor. I made up
Voices saying, I’m so green,
I’m so seasick, I’m so drunk,
Save us from all this water.
22.
When I was young I spent my days
Forming clusters of rocks for no reason.
I did this obsessively, unable to stop.
I can’t now bring myself to take the car
Into town so either I sit at Ogie’s desk
And paint my toenails pink or flat-iron my hair.
If I look closely, my head bears the resemblance
Of a woman’s who’s been hit a lot.
I would like to say that I fought back.
23.
I stand at the windows and try
To touch my throat to the glass.
I would give away this feeling
Just to be held tight. My god,
I was hammered. I remember
The past so clearly. How I gave
William my flesh in offering.
How he broke me open like plums.
Split my skin apart. Watched
Me bleed. Said he felt blessed
To know my body. How he
Watched me for an hour
Reach for the phone. Under
Which I’d hid a kitchen knife.
56.
I called the police once and they
Sent a fire truck, whose sirens
Cut through the silence of that
Early morning. I had whispered
Into the receiver that I’d been
Tortured for ten straight days.
I must have sounded mad.
It was morning. Guarding
The door, William demanded
Silence, holding my own knife
Against me at my throat.
24.
I am trying to say I understand
Why Ogie left me. Sometimes
You have no choice but leave.
I remember how her wet eyes
Touched mine from under the brim
Of her hat. I was almost afraid
For her. She was like one of the
Disciples. I believed she might
Even fly. That first spring the
Trees budded and bloomed
And everything that lived
At the river grew stronger.
25.
William was in love with flesh.
He watched as I stretched and reached,
Turning slowly on the floor, retreating
Deeper inside myself, recalling
To myself the child who made rocks
Into intricate patterns. Beneath me
The grain of the wood groaned
And creaked. Years passed
Until one night I marched forward,
Stood at his face, and threw him
Backward through black window glass.
Author Biography
Molly Gaudry is the author of the verse novel We Take Me Apart, and she is the creative director at The Lit Pub.