The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010

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The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010 Page 23

by Marge Piercy


  sneak in through torn screens at night

  to light on the arm like mosquitoes?

  Are they passed from mouth to ear

  like gossip or dirty jokes? Do they

  sprout from underground on damp

  mornings like toadstools that form

  fairy rings on dewtipped grasses?

  No, they slink out of books, they lurk

  in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages

  turned they rise like the scent of peonies

  and infect the brain with their promise.

  I want, I will, says the girl and already

  she is halfway out the door and down

  the street from this neighborhood, this

  mortgaged house, this family tight

  and constricting as the collar on the next

  door dog who howls on his chain all night.

  The tao of touch

  What magic does touch create

  that we crave it so. That babies

  do not thrive without it. That

  the nurse who cuts tough nails

  and sands calluses on the elderly

  tells me sometimes men weep

  as she rubs lotion on their feet.

  Yet the touch of a stranger

  the bumping or predatory thrust

  in the subway is like a slap.

  We long for the familiar, the open

  palm of love, its tender fingers.

  It is our hands that tamed cats

  into pets, not our food.

  The widow looks in the mirror

  thinking, no one will ever touch

  me again, never. Not hold me.

  Not caress the softness of my

  breasts, my inner thighs, the swell

  of my belly. Do I still live

  if no one knows my body?

  We touch each other so many

  ways, in curiosity, in anger,

  to command attention, to soothe,

  to quiet, to rouse, to cure.

  Touch is our first language

  and often, our last as the breath

  ebbs and a hand closes our eyes.

  End of days

  Almost always with cats, the end

  comes creeping over the two of you—

  she stops eating, his back legs

  no longer support him, she leans

  to your hand and purrs but cannot

  rise—sometimes a whimper of pain

  although they are stoic. They see

  death clearly through hooded eyes.

  Then there is the long weepy

  trip to the vet, the carrier no

  longer necessary, the last time

  in your lap. The injection is quick.

  Simply they stop breathing

  in your arms. You bring them

  home to bury in the flower garden,

  planting a bush over a deep grave.

  That is how I would like to cease,

  held in a lover’s arms and quickly

  fading to black like an old-fashioned

  movie embrace. I hate the white

  silent scream of hospitals, the whine

  of pain like air-conditioning’s hum.

  I want to click the off switch.

  And if I can no longer choose

  I want someone who loves me

  there, not a doctor with forty patients

  and his morality to keep me sort

  of, kind of alive or sort of undead.

  Why are we more rational and kinder

  to our pets than to ourselves or our

  parents? Death is not the worst

  thing; denying it can be.

  DATES OF COMPOSITION

  The following is a list of poems in this book and the dates they were written, which, as you can see, often is different from the date of book publication.

  from STONE, PAPER, KNIFE 1983

  A key to common lethal fungi 1980

  The common living dirt 1982

  Toad dreams 1981

  Down at the bottom of things 1981

  A story wet as tears 1979

  Absolute zero in the brain 1980

  Eating my tail 1979

  It breaks 1979

  What’s that smell in the kitchen? 1980

  The weight 1980

  Very late July 1980

  Mornings in various years 1981

  Digging in 1981

  The working writer 1980

  The back pockets of love 1981

  Snow, snow 1982

  In which she begs (like everybody else) that love may last 1982

  Let us gather at the river 1980

  Ashes, ashes, all fall down 1979

  from MY MOTHER’S BODY 1985

  Putting the good things away 1982

  They inhabit me 1983

  Unbuttoning 1983

  Out of the rubbish 1983

  My mother’s body 1983

  How grey, how wet, how cold 1984

  Taking a hot bath 1984

  Sleeping with cats 1984

  The place where everything changed 1981

  The chuppah 1982

  House built of breath 1982

  Nailing up the mezuzah 1983

  The faithless 1984

  And whose creature am I? 1983

  Magic mama 1984

  Does the light fail us, or do we fail the light? 1984

  from AVAILABLE LIGHT 1988

  Available light 1986

  Joy Road and Livernois 1986

  Daughter of the African evolution 1985

  The answer to all problems 1985

  After the corn moon 1987

  Perfect weather 1987

  Moon of the mother turtle 1986

  Baboons in the perennial bed 1985

  Something to look forward to 1985

  Litter 1987

  The bottom line 1985

  Morning love song 1986

  Implications of one plus one 1985

  Sun-day poacher 1987

  Burial by salt 1986

  Eat fruit 1985

  Dead Waters 1985

  The housing project at Drancy 1985

  Black Mountain 1985

  The ram’s horn sounding 1985

  from MARS AND HER CHILDREN 1992

  The ark of consequence 1988

  The ex in the supermarket 1988

  Your eyes recall old fantasies 1989

  Getting it back 1990

  How the full moon wakes you 1988

  The cat’s song 1988

  The hunger moon 1991

  For Mars and her children returning in March 1988

  Sexual selection among birds 1989

  Shad blow 1988

  Report of the 14th Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group 1991

  True romance 1991

  Woman in the bushes 1990

  Apple sauce for Eve 1991

  The Book of Ruth and Naomi 1989

  Of the patience called forth by transition 1988

  I have always been poor at flirting 1990

  It ain’t heavy, it’s my purse 1989

  Your father’s fourth heart attack 1989

  Up and out 1987

  The task never completed 1990

  from WHAT ARE BIG GIRLS MADE OF? 1997

  What are big girls made of? 1995

  Elegy in rock, for Audre Lorde 1992

  All systems are up 1992

  For two women shot to death in Brookline, Massachusetts 1995

  A day in the life 1995

  The grey flannel sexual harassment suit 1995

  On guard 1991

  The thief 1994

  Belly good 1991

  The flying Jew 1991

  My rich uncle, whom I only met three times 1991

  Your standard midlife crisis 1993

  The visitation 1992

  Half vulture, half eagle 1991

  The level 1993

  The negative ion dance 1991

  The voice of the grackle 1994r />
  Salt in the afternoon 1991

  Brotherless one: Sun god 1993

  Brotherless two: Palimpsest 1993

  Brotherless three: Never good enough 1993

  Brotherless four: Liars dance 1993

  Brotherless five: Truth as a cloud of moths 1993

  Brotherless six: Unconversation 1993

  Brotherless seven: Endless end 1993

  from EARLY GRRRL 1999

  The correct method of worshipping cats 1996

  The well preserved man 1997

  Nightcrawler 1975

  I vow to sleep through it 1995

  Midsummer night’s stroll 1987

  The name of that country is lonesome 1997

  Always unsuitable 1998

  from THE ART OF BLESSING THE DAY 1999

  The art of blessing the day 1991

  Learning to read 1995

  Snowflakes, my mother called them 1998

  On Shabbat she dances in the candle flame 1997

  In the grip of the solstice 1995

  Woman in a shoe 1995

  Growing up haunted 1994

  At the well 1978

  For each age, its amulet 1989

  Returning to the cemetery in the old Prague ghetto 1990

  The fundamental truth 1995

  Amidah: on our feet we speak to you 1997

  Kaddish 1991

  Wellfleet Shabbat 1987

  The head of the year 1994

  Breadcrumbs 1993

  The New Year of the Trees 1982

  Charoset 1991

  Lamb Shank: Z’roah 1996

  Matzoh 1995

  Maggid 1991

  Coming up on September 1989

  Nishmat 1987

  from COLORS PASSING THROUGH US 2003

  No one came home 2002

  Photograph of my mother sitting on the steps 2001

  One reason I like opera 1999

  My mother gives me her recipe 1998

  The good old days at home sweet home 1996

  The day my mother died 1999

  Love has certain limited powers 1998

  Little lights 2001

  Gifts that keep on giving 2001

  The yellow light 1996

  The new era, c. 1946 1997

  Winter promises 1998

  The gardener’s litany 1997

  Eclipse at the solstice 2001

  The rain as wine 2000

  Taconic at midnight 2001

  The equinox rush 1999

  Seder with comet 1997

  The cameo 2000

  Miriam’s cup 2002

  Dignity 1999

  Old cat crying 1999

  Traveling dream 1997

  Kamasutra for dummies 2001

  The first time I tasted you 1997

  Colors passing through us 1998

  from THE CROOKED INHERITANCE 2006

  Tracks 2002

  The crooked inheritance 2005

  Talking with my mother 2005

  Swear it 2003

  Motown, Arsenal of Democracy 2003

  Tanks in the streets 2003

  The Hollywood haircut 2004

  The good, the bad and the inconvenient 2005

  Intense 2002

  How to make pesto 2002

  The moon as cat as peach 1996

  August like lint in the lungs 2004

  Metamorphosis 2004

  Choose a color 2004

  Deadlocked wedlock 2004

  Money is one of those things 2002

  In our name 2003

  Bashert 2004

  The lived in look 2003

  Mated 2004

  My grandmother’s song 2002

  The birthday of the world 2002

  N’eilah 2004

  In the sukkah 2005

  The full moon of Nisan 2004

  Peace in a time of war 2003

  The cup of Eliyahu 2002

  The wind of saying 2002

  Some NEW POEMS

  The low road 2007

  The curse of Wonder Woman 2007

  July Sunday at 10 a.m. 2009

  Football for dummies 2008

  Murder, unincorporated 2008

  The happy man 2007

  Collectors 2010

  First sown 2010

  Away with all that 2010

  All that remains 2010

  What comes next 2010

  Where dreams come from 2010

  The tao of touch 2009

  End of days 2006

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marge Piercy is the author of eighteen collections of poetry, including Circles on the Water, a selection from her early works. Among her more recent volumes: The Crooked Inheritance; Colors Passing Through Us; The Art of Blessing the Day; What Are Big Girls Made Of?; Mars and Her Children; Available Light; My Mother’s Body; and Stone, Paper, Knife. In 1990 her poetry won the Golden Rose, the oldest poetry award in the country. She is also the author of a memoir, Sleeping with Cats, and seventeen novels, the most recent being Sex Wars. This year PM Press republished Dance the Eagle to Sleep and Vida with new introductions. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into nineteen languages. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and public radio interviewer, with whom she has written a play, a novel and most recently the second edition of So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Fiction and Personal Narrative.

  Marge Piercy’s website address is www.margepiercy.com.

  She can also be reached on Facebook.

  ALSO BY MARGE PIERCY

  POETRY

  The Crooked Inheritance

  Colors Passing Through Us

  The Art of Blessing the Day

  Early Grrrl

  What Are Big Girls Made Of?

  Mars and Her Children

  Available Light

  My Mother’s Body

  Stone, Paper, Knife

  Circles on the Water (Selected Poems)

  The Moon Is Always Female

  The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing

  Living in the Open

  To Be of Use

  4-Telling (with Bob Hershon, Emmett Jarrett, and Dick Lourie)

  Hard Loving

  Breaking Camp

  NOVELS

  Sex Wars

  The Third Child

  Three Women

  Storm Tide (with Ira Wood)

  City of Darkness, City of Light

  The Longings of Women

  He, She and It

  Summer People

  Gone to Soldiers

  Fly Away Home

  Braided Lives

  Vida

  The High Cost of Living

  Woman on the Edge of Time

  Small Changes

  Dance the Eagle to Sleep

  Going Down Fast

  OTHER

  Pesach for the Rest of Us

  So You Want to Write: How to Master the Craft of Writing Fiction and the Personal Narrative (with Ira Wood), 1st & 2nd editions

  The Last White Class (Play) (with Ira Wood)

  Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir

  Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt (Essays)

  Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now (Anthology)

 

 

 


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