by Erin Lee Shields
BARBITURATE BETHLEHEM
With a shotgun by the bed and a .45 under the pillow,
the battered man of action performs his final evasion
of capture, of general understanding.
Picture this stag setting — an unmade laughing bed
swallowed by a urine bone smoke all folding in begonia wallpaper;
This is Barbiturate Bethlehem, and there’s always room in the inn.
His hand is hanging off the side of the mattress.
His hand is pinching the trigger, pinching a snapdragon, a cigar.
His goddamn girl is wailing on the law crying out:
It’s not that he needed the money, it’s just the people he owed it to want it real bad.
LADY BETHESDA IN WINTER
I have walked into the fountain,
returning, like a child lost to springtime.
I have endured the restless wandering and
it brought me back entirely prodigal.
A coat of snow over the basin,
over a terrace.
I have cradled myself in the
great palm of Lady Bethesda and she tells me,
the ones I returned for no longer exist.
EARTHWORKS
my body has appeared to me in the deepwood,
half-buried among carpet moss and cedar sticks,
and it’s naked.
there’s a house wren tucked in the cove of its palm
and he’s building a nest and it’s letting him do so.
i can scarcely grasp the deep time of life on earth,
but i sense my stilled body, the most quiet,
will at least leave an imprint when it's gone.
i want you to know that,
as i’m looking at it,
today has started to feel like the first day of my life.
****
Erin Lee Shields is a poet living in New York City.