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Edited on Fri Apr-18-08 08:16 AM by BlueIris
"The Tarot Reading"
If I can just remember it is the gathering of stems sprouting new leaves from one end to the other, maybe I can transfix the terrifying view of a bound and blindfolded creature, woman, standing in muddy morass, unable to move.
On the final card for the future, the kneeling weeping woman I know I am, being interpreted by my friend who read the cards as woe to be overcome, feeling as I did that she was blotting out the scenes as fast as she could think of something, anything positive so I couldn't say, See? I know how it will turn out. Grief has me by the throat and won't let go. My faint talent is fading, not flourishing. I fear for my soul. Did I say soul? I who red pencil it page after student page, because the poem has not earned it.
Call me, my friend says, and I am back in the jealous trough wallow- ing in failure. When my breasts stopped giving milk, they returned to their adolescent size. Why do I keep choosing men whose mothers had ample bosoms. Choosing is not the right word. Something my body chooses. I am trying to trust what my body tells me, but falling in love at first sight is folly personified. And it is a young woman's game. The old woman has no such compensation. She ruts and sighs in her sleep, her dreams begin to wrinkle and sag. But I will not program them. I have to trust being able to withstand the weather at this altitude and not project my claustrophobia into that future six feet under. Even the old woman can dream new leaves, can't she?
—Ann Darr
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