Poems

By Maria Gillan

Can We Ever Go Back

Can we ever go back beyond our own blindness  

to find what was really true? 

How many ways do we fool ourselves into believing  

we are better than we are.  

How many lies do we tell ourselves, so we don’t have to see  

what is so obvious. 

Before you died, I did not know how much I would miss you,  

how empty our house would seem without you in it.  

I didn’t know the real meaning of loneliness, the way I sit 

in this house by myself and listen to the walls creak,  

the way I awaken in the night now in pain, wanting you to be near me. 

It’s been so many years since you died, so many years since 

you held my hand or stroked my hair. I cannot believe that I am as old as I am.  

I cannot believe the way time slips through my fingers faster than water or sand.  

I look at the obituaries and try to find out which people have died. 

When might I die? On days when it rains and my bones hurt and I want to give up, 

I think, No, I’m still greedy for life, there’s so much still to be experienced,  

so much still that I want to do. 

I see a 104-year-old woman who saying, Oh no, I still want to learn  

how to play bridge or I still want to go on adventures and so do I.  

I just need a magic wand to make my body stronger.  

I just need the willpower to exercise when I should  

so I can keep going on new adventures, this year, the next, all of it  

pulling me forward into this life that I don’t deserve and that I have gotten anyway.  

The Chances I Should Have Taken 

So many chances I should have taken, 

but I was always afraid. The frightened child who lived inside me  

with her big, startled eyes, her frozen face, too often caught me and I couldn’t move. 

Yet one day, as though a magic wand had been waved over me,  

I pushed that child out of the way,  

and I started doing all the things I had been afraid to do. 

With each chance I took, I became braver and now,  

looking back in my eighth decade! I am grateful for the life I’ve lived, 

all the places I’ve been,  

all the writers I’ve met,  

all the poetry readings I’ve given, 

the poetry workshops I’ve taught. 

In the tenements where I grew up I could not have imagined  

a life so free of constraints, far removed from the place where I began,  

so different from the children who were my friends. 

A few years ago, I went to a school reunion for PS 18,  

and I saw that the women looked at me as though I were an exotic bird. 

I ended up sitting with the men who had careers and full lives, 

the women were dull and boring, still limited in a 1940’s kind of way. 

I didn’t like them, and they didn’t like me. 

They had colored between the lines 

and I had taken chances that set me free. 

I’ve Had to Cross People Off My List 

I used to tolerate everyone, was the friend who encouraged others, 

who listened while they moaned and complained, 

the ones who talked so long on the phone that my ears would turn numb. 

One friend kept talking even after I told her that my daughter  

had fallen down the stairs. She never asked about her or about me. 

I was young then, still amazingly patient. 

Now though when every morning  

I check the obituaries to find out who died and how old they were, 

I try to calculate how many years I might have left.  

So, I have started crossing people off my list of friends, 

say farewell to the narcissists, the cruel and unkind, 

the ones who belittle others to make themselves feel strong. 

I have carried them on my back for too many years, and without them, 

I feel so light, and I can breathe again. 

The Body Is a Letter

The body is a letter we are always trying to read.

It is trying to tell me that I am crashing into old age.

I hold a mirror up to my face

and I can’t believe how drained I look,

as though I had used up every last bit of energy. 

What can I say?

This is a letter I would prefer not to read. 

What is the shape of every day we pass through? 

Where do we travel but in time? 

I look at my arms and hands, 

the skin suddenly translucent and cracked like parchment. 

Now my hands tremble when I try to carry something. 

I think maybe it’s not a letter 

my body is sending me 

but a telegram. 

Hurry up, pile on any joy you can 

because you don’t know how many days you have left. 

Hurry up, hurry up,     

There’s no time left for slow walking. You need to get 

from one place to another as fast as you can. 

My bones creak. 

They make noise when I move. 

My broken shoulders have healed,

but the cartilage is gone.

It hurts to lift my arms, but I’m alive. 

I am 84. I can hang on. 

Life is precious and short. 

I cannot give up. 

I will move forward into each day 

trying to find the sweetness at its cente     r.

Memory 

A memory sharp as a knife stabs me in the chest  

and I lift the quilt of the past,  

pure desire, junkie for joy. 

Ladybug, crawling on my hand, beautiful. 

with its bright colors, its body going somewhere on my hand,  

but neither knows where.  

Maybe this is the way memory is. It stays with you,  

and you can lift it out of its box  

and cradle it in your arms to give you comfort  

until you put it away again, safe, and close the lid.