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Vexed
Elizabeth Poreba
Vexed
Copyright © 2015 Elizabeth Poreba. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-1888-7
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-1889-4
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
“Village Church,” “One-Sided Dialogue Concerning the Soul” and “Jonah” appeared previously in Commonweal.
“The Career of That Enigmatic Man” appeared in Spiritofstbarts (online)
“Iris” and “St. Kateri” appeared in First Literary Review East (online)
Scriptural passages from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Cover Image: John Mann, Untitled, from Drift, 2013
Members of the O’Clock Poets—Maura Candela, Guillermo Castro, John Couturier, Ron Drummond, Katie Johntz, Amy Lemmon, Katrinka Moore, Martie Palar, Joan Poole, Sarah Stern—read and pondered most of these poems with me, and I can never thank them enough.
for all the saints, known and unknown
Vexed
Why not speak of it
made of rays
A large presence
that does not press upon us
Why not people the blue
populate the waste space
Set the table
arrange the cup and plate
Mark the calendar
to the end of time
Smooth back
the title page
Address this vexed topic
neither wave
Nor particle
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
It’s living with that old lady, isn’t it? How she persists in the face of nobody’s interest.
How she lavishes Pond’s Classic Caring Crème in grudging 3AM light, electricity hauled from the dark to service her futile salvage effort.
How she creeps into the kitchen for coffee draped in a 30-year old robe, the good one reserved for the inevitable hospital visit (as she would explain if anyone asked).
How she is out the door in her sensible shoes, immune to the street’s indifference, persistent in her flaws despite being trained to please.
How as a smoother version of herself, better packaged, she was a pleasant woman, but she is no longer pleasing.
In fact she can be very unpleasant, though combed, usually, and clean, doddering along in the general rush.
How she can’t even knit worth beans or imagine anyone else’s misery.
Soul, how you groan, poor soul, in such company.
Mystery
The man they sent to campus once a week to parlay with those of us interested used this word often, soothing our perplexities with its soft three beats. I took it to mean unknown, but lately it seems to mean, continuously being revealed, like the deer that fill the woods in these parts.
One waited to cross the road the other day, cautious and pedestrian. Driving by, I glimpsed the glazed pools of its eyes opened wide and in the rearview mirror saw the grace of its gait, head unmoving as legs lightly plied a sure scatter of hoofs on asphalt to the other side, where it resumed its disappearance.
Cryptic
Fascination of shapes
that signal
what might come.
A hawk on a high limb,
chest an urn
waiting empty in the sun.
A key’s cryptic edge
that exerts
owner’s privilege.
To the searching eye,
any thing
can suggest an opening.
Abraham and Sarah Get the Unlikely News
Her husband sits in the center of the painting,
lifting a languid finger toward her.
She leans out of the house
as if to restrain herself from escape.
That’s a gnarled hand, clutching the doorframe.
It’s the moment after her laugh.
After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?
God chooses to ask Abraham about this:
Why did she laugh?
but she’s the one to answer:
I laughed not.
