Domestic Violence

by Eavan Boland

1.

It was winter, lunar, wet. At dusk
Pewter seedlings became moonlight orphans.
Pleased to meet you meat to please you
said the butcher's sign in the window in the village.

Everything changed the year that we got married.
And after that we moved out to the suburbs.
How young we were, how ignorant, how ready
to think the only history was our own.

And there was a couple who quarreled into the night,
Their voices high, sharp:
nothing is ever entirely
right in the lives of those who love each other.

               2.

In that season suddenly our island
Broke out its old sores for all to see.
We saw them too.
We stood there wondering how

the salt horizons and the Dublin hills,
the rivers, table mountains, Viking marshes
we thought we knew
had been made to shiver

into our ancient twelve by fifteen television
which gave them back as gray and grayer tears
and killings, killings, killings,
then moonlight-colored funerals:

nothing we said
not then, not later,
fathomed what it is
is wrong in the lives of those who hate each other.

             3.

And if the provenance of memory is
only that—remember, not atone—
and if I can be safe in
the weak spring light in that kitchen, then

why is there another kitchen, spring light
always darkening in it and
a woman whispering to a man
over and over what else could we have done?

               4.

We failed our moment or our moment failed us.
The times were grand in size and we were small.
Why do I write that
when I don't believe it?

We lived our lives, were happy, stayed as one.
Children were born and raised here
and are gone,
including ours.

As for that couple did we ever
find out who they were
and did we want to?
I think we know. I think we always knew.

“Domestic Violence” from Domestic Violence by Eavan Boland. Copyright ©2007 by Eavan Boland.

Happening

by Andrew Shields

He stood up suddenly and threw
himself and his grey canvas sack
to the bus's floor, then, clutching
the sack's edges, he struck the floor
with it again, four or five times,
then stopped. No one moved, everyone
had moved for a moment, away
from him as he had struck the floor.

He sat looking at the contents
of the bag, now strewn all over.
Cassetts, broken cassette cases,
assorted papers, and pieces
of his old cassette recorder.
He sat quite still for a moment.
Whatever had been happening
wasn't happening anymore.

Nothing continued to happen,
then something began to happen
again. He began to pick up
his things, put them into the sack.
No one moved. They all looked at him,
or they all tried not to look at him.
He put his things into the sack
with steadily increasing speed.

Andrew Shields, "Happening" from Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong. Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Shields. 

Equinox

by Elizabeth Alexander

Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
I have found their dried husks in my clothes.

They are dervishes because they are dying,
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze
a drop of venom or of honey.
After the stroke we thought would be her last
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped

a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,
walked outside, and lay down in the snow.
Two years later there is no other way
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.

“Equinox” by Elizabeth Alexander. From Body of Life, published by Tia Chucha Press. Copyright 1996 Elizabeth Alexander. 

The God Who Loves You

by Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you  
To ponder how much happier you’d be today  
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings  
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened  
Had you gone to your second choice for college,  
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted  
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music  
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.  
A life thirty points above the life you’re living  
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point  
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.  
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments  
So she can save her empathy for the children.  
And would you want this god to compare your wife  
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?  
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation  
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight  
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel  
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife  
Would have pleased her more than you ever will  
Even on your best days, when you really try.  
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives  
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him  
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill  
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you  
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene  
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him  
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend  
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight  
And write him about the life you can talk about  
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,  
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

Carl Dennis, “The God Who Loves You” from Practical Gods. Copyright © 2001 by Carl Dennis.

The Pig

by Roald Dahl

In England once there lived a big
And wonderfully clever pig.
To everybody it was plain
That Piggy had a massive brain.
He worked out sums inside his head,
There was no book he hadn’t read,
He knew what made an airplane fly,
He knew how engines worked and why.
He knew all this, but in the end
One question drove him round the bend:
He simply couldn’t puzzle out
What LIFE was really all about.
What was the reason for his birth?
Why was he placed upon this earth?
His giant brain went round and round.
Alas, no answer could be found,
Till suddenly one wondrous night,
All in a flash, he saw the light.
He jumped up like a ballet dancer
And yelled, “By gum, I’ve got the answer!”
“They want my bacon slice by slice
“To sell at a tremendous price!
“They want my tender juicy chops
“To put in all the butchers’ shops!
“They want my pork to make a roast
“And that’s the part’ll cost the most!
“They want my sausages in strings!
“They even want my chitterlings!
“The butcher’s shop! The carving knife!
“That is the reason for my life!”
Such thoughts as these are not designed
To give a pig great peace of mind.
Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,
A pail of pigswill in his hand,
And Piggy with a mighty roar,
Bashes the farmer to the floor . . .
Now comes the rather grizzly bit
So let’s not make too much of it,
Except that you must understand
That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,
He ate him up from head to toe,
Chewing the pieces nice and slow.
It took an hour to reach the feet,
Because there was so much to eat,
And when he’d finished, Pig, of course,
Felt absolutely no remorse.
Slowly he scratched his brainy head
And with a little smile, he said,
“I had a fairly powerful hunch
“That he might have me for his lunch.
“And so, because I feared the worst,
“I thought I’d better eat him first.”

Roald Dahl, "The Pig" from Dirty Beasts, published by Penguin Random House LLC.  Copyright © 1983 by Roald Dahl.