Marguerite Guzman Bouvard
Night
Reflections sculpt the room
from the long window:
a half open door,
light from a single lamp.
The mountain bares
its silvery sheen and immensity
enters, the jet-blue
velvet of space
against the window.
The blanket is flung back
where the sweet warmth
of skin thrills the palm,
where news from the day’s
trenches casts shadows
and silently, grief slips in.
Still in Combat
There are
scenes that never leave
the mind gathering up the limbs
of a comrade opening a car door
only to see a dead woman
with her children the merciless heat
of a desert reappearing
on a beach. There are sounds
remaining no one else can hear
sparked by a door slamming,
the whine of a vacuum cleaner.
There are fears of open spaces a picnic
in the middle of a meadow
unease at people walking too
close behind at being
in a crowd night after night
going to sleep and waking up
with the ghosts of the killed
feeling like a failure
for having been unable to protect
fallen comrades there is no membrane
between life and death
after returning from a war.
Of Time and Breath
For Elizabeth
We lingered on a green mountain slope —
just you and I in the bronzed
light, the air stilled,
time holding its breath,
although I knew you were in a hospital room
your sigh floating
like a feather above
the swish of footsteps.
But now we two were wayfarers
sharing our stories,
as if we had slipped free
from the sheaths of our distant
cities. Your voice was as steady
as the brushstrokes on your canvases
while I placed my hand
on your shoulder and spoke
of the journey beyond this mountain
that neither of us could chart.
Then I woke up.
One week later you died.