Crash Course
“You cannot nail grief,”
the moon whispered
on the short leash
I kept her,
hooded, silent
with her private weather.
I told her, “Your father
is dead.” She shook her dusty head.
She warned me,
“Love will cost you
something you’re not prepared to pay.”
Venus snorted, “I’m not
here to make friends.”
Safer to drown in one’s own desires
than in a stranger’s, right?
(Though more lonely.)
Things I won’t understand until too late:
You either grace time or waste time.
You can never have too many wings.
Death can see through lies,
even your silent lies.
Death leaves voice messages
but I don’t play
them. I am not done
with my dead.
I am never
done with them.
I ask, “Want to hear my funny nightmare?”
No takers. The clown stutters, “But, seriously.”
The problem with masks is
it inscribes its price
on the inside of our skin.
A scar is a locked door. A door is
a stranger in two rooms.
To see clearly, I have to rip off
my false face. At least loneliness you don’t
have to fake.
There’s nothing dreamy about my dreams.
How old can you get without dying of it?
*
Holly Woodward is a writer and artist. She served as writer in residence at St. Albans, Washington National Cathedral, and was a fellow for four years at CUNY Graduate Center’s Writers’ Institute. Woodward enjoyed a year as a doctoral fellow at Moscow University. She also studied at Leningrad University and has an MFA from Columbia. Her poetry and fiction have won prizes from Story Magazine, the 92nd Street Y, and New Letters, among other honors.
Memorable…and true.