Erin Wilson

There Will Be Enough Time Otherwise for Salaciousness and Ruin

This poem begins in the morning,
pushing the stink into the shower,
absolving the body of its living accomplishment
of sweat, saliva, vaginal accretions,
stains around the asshole and gunk between the toes,
shaving the armpits slick, nicking the legs until nubile,

then bringing that freshness, that supple skin
brimming with the scent of goat soap,
that brushed hair shining with coconut oil,
gathering it beneath the shroud of Icelandic wool
and pushing it up through the collar, today becoming
a civilized buffalo, one who cherishes its skullcap,

getting into the car and driving out of town,
past derelict museums and new grocery stores
with laminate floors that will never last,
past the daily businesses, banks, insurance companies,
car shops and funeral homes,
past the farmlands, past the still-standing
stripped silver/white shining snag,
an encampment for two eagles
glaring at roadside carrion,

            the radio intolerable,
            the news intolerable,
            your thoughts intolerable,

turning instead to Purcell's hymns,
Purcell's affirmations, dares and railings,
his human directness,

meanwhile fondling your cheekbones,
contending once again with the recessiveness of your chin,
flaking off dried epidermis, rubbing your skin to a tactile lustre,
taking in the miles,
ticking off the memories,

meanwhile the dove,
            the dove
beating upon your shoulders,
            the dove
smoothing the folds of your mind,
            the dove
pecking at the place, the empty egg
that dangles from your sexual dewlap like an earring,

Purcell again, "O Solitude,"

you're travelling again,
your car hurtling again,
you hurtling again
having forgotten it,
the smothering smog,
the din and closeness and snuffling of towns,
the sin of self
and society, not people,
because Purcell is here with you, a person
and although long-dead,
singing with moral goodness,

you're going into it
glazed in goat soap
and sheltered in wool,
you're going into it with femur and ulna,
with sacrum and coccyx,
your mind a whitescape,
yourself become a palimpsest,

your body still,
a beady black eye's twitching,
you're watching for the one thing,
watching and waiting for the one thing
to sing, to wing,
to cross the wide white field.

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Erin Wilson's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Salamander Magazine, Crab Creek Review, takahē, Reliquiae, Columba, Trinity House Review, San Pedro River Review, Pembroke Magazine and in numerous other publications internationally. Her first collection is At Home with Disquiet, published by Circling Rivers Press. She lives and writes in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.