Interim: Two Poems

Alice Gribbin

Oct 2, 2022

Since the last post here, I gave birth and have been occupied with loving and getting to know my child. Though this Substack is intended for essays on the arts, recently I’ve been writing only poetry—have had, for a stretch, no inclination towards prose. As a one-off, please indulge me: a new poem, and after it, an older one.

Latch

I

Do you know the way to the feast?

You who have read 
all the books, read each word 
in every one, hungry for what 
cannot be found there.

You who have touched 
every other brick, 
placed shard and shard in place, 
hoarded the years, left no stone 
unclassified, 
waiting for the earth to be more solid. 
Is it yet? 

How overaware you seem,
forever naming each thing: subject 

subject 
object object, or 
neither, or both. But what 
of the feast, meanwhile, and being there?


II

Two parts and not one
of us thinks about the where, and how, and how
long for. She needs feeding and so the baby
is fed, is fastened, 
fastens herself to her mother. 
Having a body takes practice. 
Instinct does not preclude bewilderment, no. Here 
	bewilderment follows it, close, 
a breath away only. 
Complaints, coaxings, her hand
or hands interfering,
insistent nipple, insistent
tiny mouth,
our few square 
inches of chaos, 
of soft incoherence, are quieted 
when baby at once latches. 

More than once, 
one breast impossible with milk, exorbitantly full, 
wet from a shower, needy, naked, I’ve rushed to her.

The Rocks

You cannot make a metaphor of war. 
I will be here forever, saying so. Having come from the place 
	where bones melt 
how could I long for 
anywhere, telling you with my straight rock face 
poetry should take us 
away from here. 
And what would I long for anyway, an earth more habitable to rocks? 
The dead need us here, loving them. 
Why else do we sit all day in the sun, feeling its rays, warming, lifeless, 
	if not for them. 
Could you love all the dead? 
Ask us why there are no scenes in nature. You cannot count 
the directions of our love.