The culture oriented itself toward shopping
The
culture oriented itself toward shopping
The culture
invented a flat vivid world to sink into
As one sinks into a bath and closes the door and runs the warm water with a
Book
or a glass of sharp wine
Inside
the white noise of water out rushes any immediate concern
Some lives have been scrubbed of immediate concerns
or mud
or weather
After work
some shopping
For work some
shopping
Running to the store
and picking up some food
Or
hiring a contractor
Or
someone for the lawn
Purchasing new clothes
Which
might confer some attractiveness and dignity
Materials
which could convey
One’s
inner goodness, attractiveness, and taste
Having the best qualities and correct values
Best thoughts
are elaborately patterned
Worst thoughts
rise up as a self-righteous ego, scarlet and furious and fuming into fingers
Or
alternatively as a sheet of empty area
Wherever
the personality goes when the activity ceases
When
it is neither buying nor preparing for a future purchase
In the car
the environment is leather and black and smooth sweet odor
Serenity
is composed of quality materials
It has contours
which are a pleasure to take note of
As the
wishes rear up
On the way to or from some shopping
A little
appetite leaks out
So
obvious in fact it need never be discussed
A
feeling of perpetual lack
Is the water in the river we float down
I flow
from the lip of one day to the next
As if
lounging on a cool dark river that’s
Composed
of what I might purchase
In
the mall the stores are horizontally stacked
Into discrete
dioramas of hypothetical lives
I sample the hypothetical lives
I unwrap them
from the quality tissues paper and boxy bags with hard sharp creases
Black
and gold and pink and peacock blue
I imagine
there is a certain kind of person somewhere
Who
wears these clothes with grace
A
person could exist who carries grace in the chest like a warm affectionate orb
I’ve
expected to eventually become
I’ve been
on the verge really of emerging into grace and ease
Kindness
effortlessness
I like to be among the
Everybody
is carrying the fierce fire of the souls
Hid
with some intentional or inadvertent packaging
80 to 90 percent of my awareness
80 to 90 percent of my awareness
Is a delicate ear turned gently toward my son
Which means I ignore
What would have previously torn me asunder
You may imagine motherhood as a funnel of sand
Into which one is pulled
You may imagine a wrecked ship pulling the inhabitants down with her Into the water
Except in this metaphor
You are willingly rinsing yourself in sand or heavy water
It is an ecstasy of familial love
Among the sand and water
Whereby you are erased but replaced with something new
Like a new skin or new eyes
And there is a new creature
Sleeping very gently as if in the curl of your ear
Or
Women create people
And that is how humans continue
And that is how women are laid low
Torn asunder
Crippled Leaking
Etc
Helpless to a helpless thing
Threads of feeling and attention
Binding or sewn
Women lavish their attention
Women lavish their emotion and then
They do not have some left
History is a 6,000 year block
Inside which women are torn asunder
Picture yourself in a room with smooth white walls (No windows no doors)
That is the myth of motherhood
It says a motherhood may be a perpetual caring
Or a gradual erasing of the self
Or a sacred blanket
Or a devastating failure
To be a mother
Is to be a figure in a painting
Wrapped in a sacred blanket
Whatever the observer sees
You, the woman in the painting, you turn your head and continue
Being already busied with sheltering your small companion
Into the course of his life
EMILY BLUDWORTH DE BARRIOS is the author of Splendor, a book of poems from H_NGM_N Books, and Extraordinary Power, a chapbook from Factory Hollow Press. Her poems have most recently appeared in Sixth Finch, The Nervous Breakdown, Jellyfish, and New Delta Review. She received her MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and also holds degrees from Goldsmiths College and The College of William and Mary.
