Maggie Smith
Size Equals Distance
I can’t walk across the lawn to enlarge a starling
like a photograph preview: 4x6, 5x7, 8x10.
If I could, the bird would be the size of a man
by the time I’m close enough to hold it,
which makes it hard to explain to my children
why airplanes look small in the air and big
at the airport, how people fit inside that toy,
how they don’t shrink as they rise, then grow
as they near the ground. How can I explain
proximity sometimes but not always
transforms? Size and distance can’t be set
on opposite sides of an equation, as if
when you see something grow, it’s growing
because you’re nearing it. Consider the man-bird.
Consider the baby I can’t hold any closer
to make him grow. Consider all the things
I couldn’t miniaturize by running from them.
Dear
you, you two, you who have me
in common—not-mother, mother
you weren’t to have: Don’t you
know each other, don’t you live
in the air around me, live
being the perfectly wrong word?
Dear you, you dears, aren’t you
together swimming the air,
buoyed by my son’s breath
as he sleeps? You might slip
his ringlets like rings onto
your fingers if you’d had fingers.
I don’t think you did. If I’d seen
inside myself, I’d have seen
what I could nearly hear:
a machine whirring, assembling
eyes, ears, limbs, rung by rung
of spine, then the grind
of metal-on-metal. Forgive me
whatever gear rusted and locked,
whatever spring sprung too soon.
It is always the same dream
but not a dream. Don’t I feel you
treading the air around me
or what I feel is air rippling
in your wake, or is it wakes?
Dear you, you two—not-dears,
dears I was not to have―
if you swim, swim here.
Clock
What kind of clockmaker
builds a clock inside a body.
What kind of clockmaker
builds a clock inside a body
then refuses to wind it.
What kind of clockmaker
winds a clock inside a body
then stops it.
What kind of body
holds a clock that refuses
winding.
What kind of body
holds a clock that is wound
but stops.
What kind of body
holds a clock that can’t keep
the time.
What kind of clock
can’t keep the time.
What kind of clock.
What kind of time.
Maggie Smith is the author of The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press 2015), winner of the Dorset Prize, and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press 2005), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award. A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in poetry, Maggie has also received fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. She can be found online at www.maggiesmithpoet.com.
Return to July 2015 Edition
I can’t walk across the lawn to enlarge a starling
like a photograph preview: 4x6, 5x7, 8x10.
If I could, the bird would be the size of a man
by the time I’m close enough to hold it,
which makes it hard to explain to my children
why airplanes look small in the air and big
at the airport, how people fit inside that toy,
how they don’t shrink as they rise, then grow
as they near the ground. How can I explain
proximity sometimes but not always
transforms? Size and distance can’t be set
on opposite sides of an equation, as if
when you see something grow, it’s growing
because you’re nearing it. Consider the man-bird.
Consider the baby I can’t hold any closer
to make him grow. Consider all the things
I couldn’t miniaturize by running from them.
Dear
you, you two, you who have me
in common—not-mother, mother
you weren’t to have: Don’t you
know each other, don’t you live
in the air around me, live
being the perfectly wrong word?
Dear you, you dears, aren’t you
together swimming the air,
buoyed by my son’s breath
as he sleeps? You might slip
his ringlets like rings onto
your fingers if you’d had fingers.
I don’t think you did. If I’d seen
inside myself, I’d have seen
what I could nearly hear:
a machine whirring, assembling
eyes, ears, limbs, rung by rung
of spine, then the grind
of metal-on-metal. Forgive me
whatever gear rusted and locked,
whatever spring sprung too soon.
It is always the same dream
but not a dream. Don’t I feel you
treading the air around me
or what I feel is air rippling
in your wake, or is it wakes?
Dear you, you two—not-dears,
dears I was not to have―
if you swim, swim here.
Clock
What kind of clockmaker
builds a clock inside a body.
What kind of clockmaker
builds a clock inside a body
then refuses to wind it.
What kind of clockmaker
winds a clock inside a body
then stops it.
What kind of body
holds a clock that refuses
winding.
What kind of body
holds a clock that is wound
but stops.
What kind of body
holds a clock that can’t keep
the time.
What kind of clock
can’t keep the time.
What kind of clock.
What kind of time.
Maggie Smith is the author of The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press 2015), winner of the Dorset Prize, and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press 2005), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award. A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in poetry, Maggie has also received fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. She can be found online at www.maggiesmithpoet.com.
Return to July 2015 Edition