No one has much patience these days.
There's precious little demand
for those who pass long hours in prayer,
or stagger barefoot across Europe,
ministering to the sick, begging for gruel
and singing. And whose voice is thunderous
enough to be heard above the filibuster
of car alarms and MTV anyway? Good thing
I wear earplugs and my trusty blindfold
at all times. Languid, studied devotion;
the maxim your mind runs circles around
for days; realizations that take lifetimes:
there's just no place for those anymore.
Innocent women wear their nightgowns
out to dinner, having exhausted the armor
of their daytime wardrobes. I,
on the other hand, have all the time
in the world, plus the privacy I require,
because I'm always sleeping.
That's my lament, dilemma, handicap,
and advantage. Certainly, when I trudged
from here to here, with my eyes wide open,
I never had a moment alone,
or for anything that wasn't brand-new,
condensed, and predigested. Then my eyelids
became unbearably heavy. Before that,
just like you, I had no time to consider
the possibilities: whether I was
going to throw a punch to defend myself
when push came to shove and shove escalated
to assault, or just lie back on my slab,
wearing a beatific grin and doing nothing.
I never dreamed there existed sufficient
hollowness in me for the blows to echo.
But I heard the first thud on my flesh
cloning itself again and again in my bones.
Who could of dreamed taking a beating
could be so lulling — rain drumming
on a tin roof, and I, trapped inside,
like the glassblower's breath, imprisoned
within the vessel he's carefully shaping
into a bowl which may someday hold water.
- Amy Gerstler, Bitter Angel
