Derivatives of Common Endings
for Ellen, 1939
Shorthand is not choreography
of an immobile heart,
not the lying lines you write to your mother.
Shorthand is better
than where you came from:
than shortbread
and a back yard,
than the sticky path of snails
or the way growing garlic unwinds
its heron neck
to look straight up without eyes.
Shorthand is better
than your proverbial head
above water, treading, dreading
lack of land,
the spiral down to where your name lies curled
under the porch like a bad dog,
lies curled on his shoulder
like a blonde hair.
Shorthand is a knot
untying itself, the balloon string
as it leaves the birthday party, clothespins
dropped into milk bottles, tight braids.
Shorthand is
a silkworm’s spin, a line tossed forward,
a dangled direction
into which you find yourself running.
It is about going somewhere:
the way a grape tendril looks
for the loose stone
or the way waves nudge seaweed up
along the edges of continents,
the beaches lined with script too large
to be seen from land
though you know what it says.
