White Curtains

It is Sunday night
And I am not depressed
I feel happy.

I am no longer dying.
I am living.

My blood is red again,
Not brown.

My hips remember
How to move,
Loose and languid.

My ears hear music
And my mouth
Knows how to laugh.

My hands find themselves cooking.

I hear what people tell me,
They ask me how was my day.
Great.

What shift in the stars
or deity
should I be thanking?

My sheets are happy.
The light effuses through
The white Portuguese linen panels
Covering the windows,
Like tropical brides.

The plants all show new growth.
The betta’s tail is growing back.
I thought that I would keep disappearing,
Little by little—
But instead, here I am
Painting my toenails red

And not sad because tomorrow is Monday.

Breathing in and out
Mischievously feeling
Like I have every right to do so.

~Viola Moriarty

Turquesa

I wandered out and
bought a turquoise hat
which I wore to dinner
and tasted tikka masala with garlic and cilantro nan
while I studied the paintings of Bonnard.
next I went to the film about Pablo Neruda, el poeta, el chileno
because you had told me that this film existed,
that it would be playing at this time at that place.
I felt fat, dumb and happy-
like my cells and skin were finally waking up
listening to those pan flutes and poetries
savoring sounds and syllables
licking the inside of my mouth and the backs of my teeth
repeating each word in Spanish
knowing that I would never be the same
“paz, pan, flores, y amor” said the filmaker
and I ran away to the beat of the Chilean drum
and to the screams of Andean children dying in the streets
I am turquoise on the inside.

~Viola Moriarty

I am opaque
red paint on glass panes
the wooden frame remains Barely intact, brittle

I wash the dishes
With no conversation
I lock the doors
As you would
If you were here
Your absent habits tell me
what to do with myself
I turn to ask you to hand me something
And then I get it for myself
I liked to be alone
when I knew it was temporary,
When I knew you’d be here any minute now

My glass cracks easily

Tears dilute the paint and it forms little clots

There is nothing behind the glass

Except pictures of you
Too difficult to make out

An old window
No longer useful

To anyone but me
Come back, I cry
Please come back

Thin red paint bleeds down the panes

Onto the floor you were supposed to sweep
Come back, I cry
Please come back

~Viola Moriarty

nigredo

A life that once made sense is breaking apart
rearranging its parts into a new whole

I need a big yellow sign
over my liminal condition
–over my whole damn life–
that reads
“Under construction–Expect delays”

I have no advice to offer these days
no commentary
no comfort

my full-contact eyes
and non-judging heart
have to be enough

Since, from the outside,
the dissolving cannot be discerned–
the Alchemist’s vessel looks the same
throughout the nigredo–

What to cut?
What to keep?

For those answers I need quiet
to hear the beat of my own heart

the lightness of joy, or a deadening thud?

Though you can see me looking out the window
at the distant green mountains
at the view that is closing in
because of overgrowth which must be addressed

and I look still and harmless,
even lazy,
the sputtering reactivity
of chemical reaction is occurring

the darkening is happening
the nigresence
has dangerously and recuperatively begun.

~Viola Moriarty