Gratitude

Today I think I am healed. I do not want

what I do not have. Even the lover who sleeps

across town—one of my hairs trapped behind his ear—

feels near to me. Sure, my mother did not hold me enough,

too tempted by the specter of satiety only alcohol can bring.

But I do not resent her. Even she is wild and shining

in the palace of memory, my mind’s glass castle.

Last night I woke from a dream of a terrible storm

to the sounds of a terrible storm: wind rattling the windows,

knocking branches against the roof. No one was there

to hold me, and I was happy. A little curtain of satisfaction

fell over my face while I lay there, wanting nothing.

Jonathan asks me to send him a poem about gratitude.

At first, nothing comes to mind. All poems, I think,

are about lack: language’s inability to capture the real.

So I send him a poem about contentment:

gratitude’s simpler sibling, the privileged child

who can rest on their laurels without self-knowledge.

To thank takes work. You must risk foolishness to do it.

In the morning, the storm had passed, only a few

sporadic clouds releasing the last of their burden,

punctuated by sun, steam lifting off the concrete.

Was I thankful for this, or was my emptiness

merely glossed over, inoculated, fed?

I opened the curtains as wide as they would go,

inviting all the possible light. Jonathan thanked me

for the poem. We both knew it was not what he wanted.

In the end, the speaker sees birds rising up

from gnarled trees and thinks, as they fly off,

I need to go there too. When really, the birds

should exist without the complication of need.

I tell Jonathan I will find a new poem, one

without desire, or, better yet, without birds at all.