Maryann Corbett
Eighth Circle*
Their erstwhile shapes were gone without a trace
and the monstrous form that was and was not they
now moved away with slow and stumbling pace
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Canto XXV of the Inferno, trans. R. Wilbur
I.
The horror: that they change against their will.
That she, who never let a hair go gray,
scratches at steel-wool shreds. That she gums swill,
her toothless mouth turned in. What shall we say,
her visitors? That rust and moth consume?
The television's monstrous single eye,
sole light in half a semi-private room,
is witness to the shifting, awkward poses
we mask with sprays of supermarket bloom.
We putter. We arrange our useless roses.
II.
Horror again, and shame at how I wince.
Past limbo (with Victorian settee,
flocked wallpaper, and William Morris prints)
the heart makes its descent. On the crabbed way
between the wheelchairs crowded in the hall,
I meet the other shades here, these who stay,
scuffing in slippered feet along a wall,
eyes to the floor. Fluorescent shadow-show
startles one soul to half-life, and his call
for help stings me, though nurses hardly slow
at threads of spittle hanging from a chin,
at gaunt necks, hollow cheeks shaved days ago,
skin like crepe paper, wristbones matchstick-thin.
How should I clutch at hope against such need?
How will my mother grasp her life again?
I practice a tight smile. I pick up speed.
III.
Most horrible: the drifting sparks of grace,
small brightnesses that trick me into longing.
The light that flares and gutters in her face
when she says simply, Sing. The wells of song,
nursery, hymn tune, Rodgers and Hammerstein,
rinsing the soul like snowmelt, pouring, strong
and clean, until some icebound edge of a line—
I don't know why I love you like I do—
snags on the raveled fabric of her mind
and snares it—Why. I don't know why. Do you
know why? Why?— and I watch her disappear,
singsonging Why? to fretful sleep. And so,
having no guide, I leave her sleeping here.
* * *
Ballade for the Last Move
Reject, discard: so much must go
to fit the more constrained designs
her living space will dwindle to.
And though the polished rosewood shines
where sun leaks through Venetian blinds,
the moving crew will storm the door
too soon. She balks, resists, repines.
What comfort is she searching for?
China: twelve settings. Needed? No.
In fact, she never entertains.
The crystal never held bordeaux
or beaujolais; she knows no wines.
Her teacups keep their tight confines;
her silver cloisters in the drawer
in dust each grating minute grinds.
What graces was she searching for?
And nothings that she strains to know
the whys of keeping, and consigns
to closet shelves, too high, too low—
the broken books with torn-off spines,
the tchotchke china figurines—
they did mean something, once. They bore
some weight the chain of time unwinds,
some substance she was searching for.
I read her face between the lines.
Whatever current stirred her core
is neutral now behind her eyes.
What woman am I searching for?
Maryann Corbett lives in St. Paul and works for the Minnesota Legislature. Her poems, essays,
and translations have appeared widely online and in print in many journals and assorted anthologies and have won the
Lyric Memorial Award, the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, and the Richard Wilbur Award. Her books are Breath
Control (David Robert Books), Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter (Able Muse), and
Mid Evil, forthcoming from The Evansville Press.
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