When It Gets This Way Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

things have fallen off a table

and landed where there are pears,

apples

burnished in gold

where we are told odd fables over breakfast

and midas cornered,

the mice pattern fine clothes

allotted the miracle

of a spot of jam

a fallen crumb

do I hear singing from the attic,

remotely view

the girl in the pier glass cracked

in the chanson

where the rubies gush through

of the light allotted her

where bluebirds fetch


her snowy gowns?

garlands of myrtle…

and the three lilies.

Notre Dame.

my poems burst into flame

and the toy ladders cannot reach them

weeping the violet or the rose.

I have composed it in my sleep

the thing to say

when it gets this way

but the throat of the swan

on the spun glass rivers

is braided with tears.


mary angela douglas 17 april 2019