Yesterday is a small box closing <br />Upon each one of my bones, those warriors. <br />Primitive, I am a shadow of the woman ancestor <br />Who sanctioned for me parts of herself. <br />Small hands, those tiny caterpillars that bloomed <br />And grew and wrinkled, and held on till time broke. <br />Bright blue eyes, wishing specters, unwilling participants <br />To the insubordination and inconsistency of faltering promises. <br />I am part of that woman-past, I am reminiscent of her girlhood. <br /> <br />Tomorrow is the mother part of me <br />In the way I plan and perceive, seconds are but a calendar <br />To the womb that grew, the fetus that kicked, the life that became. <br />Life was the steel in my backbone, the protrusion of my bellybutton, <br />And now time consists of the pieces of me spreading. <br />I am the everything-woman of harvested wishes and <br />Dreamscape-ideology, and an encumbrance of helplessness <br />When night pulls his carpet of stars to shine atop my teardrops. <br />And fear jump-starts my heart like an old motor, rusted but still breathing. <br /> <br />Then there are the times when I run out of words, <br />My brain stalls like a white palace, it’s lines linear, windows isolated. <br />These are the nights when I seal those long lost letters, <br />And pour glue onto the cracking part of myself. <br />Yes, I am that sensitive and brittle, his words crush me like ceramic. <br />Some nights I feel old, my heart an ancient acrobat who keeps spinning <br />Seconds into eternity, and then I think of my grandmother <br />And her grandmother, and I remember that part of me is the past. <br />Grandmother, you don’t speak to me so much with a voice anymore, <br />But you still live, I see your smile every summer <br />When the rose bush blooms, and I feel your bony hands pushing me along <br />When I wish to fall into the abyss of nothing and share with you the dust.<br /><br />Stacy Lynn Mar<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/small-boxes-closing/
