Gwyneth Lewis Poems

You made me cry in cruel stations,
So I missed many trains. You married others
In plausible buildings. The subsequent son
Became my boss. You promised me nothing
But blamed me for doubting when who wouldn't.
If  I knew how to please you — who have found
Out my faults. In dreams I'm wild with guilt. Have pity
Kill it. Then, when I've lost all hope,
Kiss me again, your mouth so open — 
I'd give anything for one more night — 
That I go without thought. Don't bite. No,
Mark me. My husband already knows
Exactly what owns me.
...

To Adam Z

You asked me last summer: "What is a doily?"
Sometimes, at lunch, I walk on the beach.
Today I was coatless. A storm cloud threatened,
Dark as a spaceship. Should it pour,
A sister ship down in the water
Would throw up grappling nets to the surface,
Rain rise to soak me. Behind a sandbank,
Waves touched the shore, no more than a shimmer.

Less rare than its cousin, the antimacassar,
A doily's placed between sweet thing and china.
Both survive where vicars arrive
For tea, are given thin cup and saucer
Instead of a mug. If your cake's so rich
That it's leaking syrup, you'll need a doily.
Held up, its paper's the filigree
Of snowflake, or fingers looked through in fear.

The shower holds off. My shoe's a doily.
Without it, where would I be on these shells
That crunch underfoot, like contact lenses,
As I gingerly walk, on my mermaid way
Back to my husband in his human dwelling?

Someone is pulling a blue toy trawler
Along the horizon to port, so smoothly
It looks realistic. Sea's partly doily.
Surfers ride its lace to their downfall,
After all, we're nothing but froth.
Like a carpet salesman, the indolent tide
Flops a wave over, showing samples: "Madam,
This one is durable, has a fringe." Under
Its breath the sea sighs, "Has it come
To this? Must everything always end in ... doily?"

It must. Broad afternoon. The rain-cloud barges
Have passed and here's a cumulonimbus parade
Of imperial busts, the Roman rulers
In historical order which, I think, would please you.
Their vapor curls and noble foreheads
Are lit up in lilac because they're invading
The west. Next come the philosophers and, last of all,
The poets. Pulleys draw them delicately on.
Here comes Lucretius, then Ovid, then Horace
In lines, saying relentlessly, "Doily," "Doily,"
Till stars take over and do the same.
...

I'm starting my magnum opus: it will be
my memorial sweater.
I can't see yet how it will end
but it starts with ribbing made of rain
on circular needles, so that the sleeves,
when they wear out, can be replaced
like choruses: Raglan cheers or batwing sighs,
depending on circumstance. I do know
I'll have shoes for pockets, the soles worn out
from dancing, I hope, to inherited tunes
and some new. I'll have a Hall of Fame:
a panel in Aran with cameos
of Milton, Herbert. I'd like a boat
in the story - if you can knit
splicing comes easy - and a sea
of triple waves for voyages.
I'll have a computer linked to the eyes
of Hawaiian telescopes, so I can view
the mottle of early nebulae
which will be a large feature of my work.
I'd like it to be a pleasure to wear,
not tight round the neck or under the arms.
I want Moorish whispering galleries
and orange groves, the breath of moss,
the occasional desert… I must start soon.
It's cooling and, as evening comes on
terrified, I hear soft whirrs:
the pollen-heavy moths of time.
...

Glaucoma won't let my mother knit:
fine wool is a problem, her most intricate stitch

no longer viable. Unravelling doesn't require sight.
Look into her eyeball and you'll see light

receptors twinkling like stars. Ganglion cells die,
darken the supernovae,

lovely eclipses for others to see
in our intimate, sighted jelly.

On the coast, each village had a different style
of fisherman's sweater, they say. The tide

reads blackberry stitch like Braille
with dexterous pressure, untangling the wool

of tendons. Tears are a retreating sea
full of dark fish swimming. Knit one, purl three.
...

I knew I should never have gone below
but I did, and the fug of bilges and wood
caught me aback. The sheets of my heart
snapped taut to breaking, as a gale
stronger than longing filled the sail
inside me. To be shot of land
and its wood smoke! To feel the keel
cold in a current! To see the mast
inscribing water like a restless pen
writing a fading wake! It's true,
I'm ruined. Not even peace will do
to keep me ashore now. Not even you.
...

I wish you, first, an unimpeded view
with a boundary in it, between seen and unseen,
a line to hold onto when you're feeling sick,
something to aim for but which retreats
as fast as you travel. May you stay undeceived
and see, not a line, but a curve of the earth:
an elegant offing that leads beyond fear
out to Vasco's discoveries. It's three:
visible, sensible, rational - lines
for what we may calculate and what we can't.

In fog, I wish you mercury sight,
artificial horizon, so that you know
where not to be, quickly. I wish you the gift
of knowing where your own knowing ends.

And finally, I ask: when you reach
the event horizon from which your light
will no longer reach us and space, highly curved,
will hide you for ever, that you watch me arrive -
you shouldn't see me, but you will -
marching with flashing lighthouses, buoys,
to the edge of your singularity
with fleets of full-rigged ceremonial ships
and acres of scintillating sea.
...

"Knitting's like everything," it's tempting to say.
No. Knitting's like knitting. Sure, there's cosmology

in Norwegian sweaters with vertical stars,
but as science that doesn't get us far.

If space is made of superstrings
then God's a knitter and everything

is craft. Perhaps we can darn
tears in the space-time continuum

and travel down wormholes to begin
to purl in another dimension's skein.

But no. There are things you can't knit:
a spaceship. A husband, though the wish

might be strong and the softest thread
would be perfect for the hair on his head,

another, tougher, that washes well
for his pecs and abdominals. You can stitch a soul

daily and unpick mistakes,
perform some moral nip and tucks —

forgiveness. Look out. Your Frankenstein
might turn and start knitting you again.
...

A day of wordless misery,
thorns in the heart
that refuse to budge.

No matter, I'm keeping company
with myself, though hurting,
redeeming time that was torturing me.

My grandmother's craftwork,
I suddenly see,
was self-medication,

her fanciest knitwear
anti-depressant hosiery:
a stance against her melancholy.

This pattern wants only rhythm from me:
no judging, no knowing,
just moving on

into a future. I'm working three
axes. First a new personality
made from my patience.

Second, a scarf
composed in calm,
a respite from my usual self-harm.

The third is my finest.
Look! I've unpicked
myself from my worry, a delicate stitch

into the present. No one can see
this last. Mindfulness charges the air,
arrays me in intricate gossamer.
...

The whole thing starts with a single knot
and needles. A word and pen. Tie a loop
in nothing. Look at it. Cast on, repeat

the procedure till you have a line
that you can work with.
It's a pattern made of relation alone,

my patience, my rhythm, till empty bights
create a fabric that can be worn,
if you're lucky and practised. It's never too late

to pick up dropped stitches, each hole a clue
to something that might be bothering you,
though I link mine with ribbons and pretend

I meant them to happen. I make a net
of meaning that I carry round
portable, to work on sound

in trains and terrible waiting rooms.
It's thought in action. It redeems
odd corners of disposable time,

making them fashion. It's the kind of work
that keeps you together. The neck's too tight,
but tell me honestly: How do I look?
...