Theodora Goss: Poems

Bal Macabre
by Theodora Goss

Death, playing a mandolin,
asked when I would begin
to join, with Hope and Love, the mad pavane.

They turned in velvet tails,
while antiquated veils
fluttered like wisps of peacock-colored lawn.

I did a pirouette.
Death, in ample jet,
kissed me her hand and smiled indulgently.

I crossed the checkered floor
clutching a battledore
as Art and War were taking toast and tea.

The pillars of that hall,
of quarried marble all,
did nothing but eternally ascend,

a luminescent mist
the hue of amethyst
concealing any place where they might end.

I flung a window wide,
hoping to gaze outside,
and watched a painted landscape crack and flake,

then turned back to the room
where Beauty, with a broom,
was sweeping up the final crumbs of cake.

I leaned upon the wall,
observing the crazed ball,
and saw the grinning figures bow and spin,

then felt myself advance
to join the gruesome dance,
while Death looked on and played a mandolin.

(The image is Valse Macabre by Gustav-Adolf Mossa.)

Morning Song
by Theodora Goss

Let us away.
The break of day
should find us gone,
and in our stead
an empty bed
will greet the dawn.

Meanwhile we’ll be
beneath a tree
where woodbine twines,
upon the grass
as wild deer pass
through swaying vines.

Beside a stream
we’ll talk and dream,
and as it flows,
a scent will come
to make us dumb
from the wild rose.

A wreath of green
to crown a queen
you’ll weave for me,
a ring complete
of woodbine sweet
pulled from the tree.

I’ll fill your hands
with arching wands
of wild rose sprays
that bloom, like love,
in scented groves
on summer days.

Nor maids nor men
where we’ll walk then,
only things wild:
the stream and tree,
and wandering we,
and deer so mild,
all reconciled.

(The image is Blessed Kiss by Emma Florence Harrison.)

The Art of Loss
by Theodora Goss

I think I’m going to practice losing things.
I’ll start with smaller things like the grocery list,
my glasses, that cup of tea I’m almost sure
I put down somewhere in the living room.

I’ll graduate to house keys, my mobile phone,
the umbrella I bought in the art museum gift shop,
with a pattern of Monet’s waterlilies, that turns
a gray, wet day into walking through the gardens
at Giverny. I’ve had some practice already.
The various things I have lost include my heart,
my childhood, the country where I was born, a language,
countless single socks in the clothes dryer,
several names, a profession, my grandparents.
So you see, it shouldn’t be that hard to learn
how to lose with the effortless grace of a dancer
leaping into a perfect grand jeté.

And yet, I don’t seem much better at it now
than when, as a child, I lost my favorite doll.
No other doll would do as a substitute.
The lack of her was as solid as a fact,
unalterable, an absence that I carried
instead of her and put to bed each night,
singing lullabies to her empty cradle.
So too with other absences, which feel
almost as real as what they have replaced.

Perhaps eventually I’ll be more absence
than substance. Therefore, I’m practicing beforehand.
Today I lost some time, my second pair
of glasses, and something else, I don’t remember
what it was — there’s just a nagging sense
of loss and the thought I must have put it somewhere.
It may have been you, but honestly, I’m not sure.

When I reach that state, resembling a lace curtain,
more air than fabric, or perhaps a set of chimes
that hang in the garden, hollow at the core,
I hope the wind will blow and set me fluttering
or ringing, so there will be something left,
a sound or motion I have not lost altogether,
an echo, a disturbance.

(The image is A Moment of Contemplation by Fernand Toussain.)

Mr. Fox
by Theodora Goss

When I first fell in love with Mr. Fox, he warned me:
You can’t trust me, my dear.
Just when you think I am there,
I am gone, I am nowhere.
Look, I’m wearing a mask. Who does that? Thieves.
By the time the autumn leaves have fallen,
you will mourn my absence.

And yet, I couldn’t help it. After all,
he was wearing such a dashing red coat,
like a soldier. He had such a twinkle in his eye.
He danced so nimbly, holding my hands
in paws on which he wore black kid gloves.
His tail ended in a white tuft.
I knew about the others, of course — or at least
I’d heard rumors. I knew he was no innocent.
I knew about the one who had drowned
herself in a river, her muslin gown floating
around her. I knew about the one who had locked
herself away in a convent.

How does one fall out of love with a thief
who has already stolen one’s heart?
But I was cautious: I went to his castle in the woods.
Be bold, said the sign above the gate. Be bold.
But not too bold. I have never been good
at listening to advice, or taking it.
I was too bold, as usual.

What did I find? First, a pleasant parlor,
with blue silk curtains and rosewood furniture,
perfectly charming. Then, a library
filled with books, from Shakespeare to W.B. Yeats.
A kitchen with no implements more dangerous
than a paring knife, beside a barrel of apples
waiting to be turned into cider.
Bathrooms with modern plumbing, a dining room
that contained a mahogany table large enough
for banquets, but seldom used, judging
by the dust. Where was his secret chamber?
There must be one. On top of a desk in his study,
I’d seen a photograph of the girl who drowned,
beside a vase of lilies, like a memorial.

And there it was, at the end of a carpeted hallway.
I knew what it must lead to, that small door.
It was locked, of course, but I took out my lockpick tools
(if he was a thief, I was another).
It opened easily.

There was no blood on the floor. There were
no dead, dismembered wives hanging from hooks.
Instead, the walls were covered with masks:
fox, badger, mole, boar, weasel,
otter, squirrel, even one that resembled a tree.
All the masks he had worn, presumably.
And on one wall, opposite the window,
which badly needed washing, was a portrait
of an ordinary man with sandy hair
and tired eyes.

I locked the room behind me. At our wedding,
he said, “Are you sure, my dear?” with a toothy grin
that seemed wicked, but was, I thought, a little anxious.
“To marry the dangerous Mr. Fox?” I asked.
“Who knows, you might gobble me up,
but I’ll take my chances.” He seemed satisfied,
and swung me into a waltz. There’s a moral to this story:
ladies, have your own set of lockpick tools. Also,
be bold and wise and cunning,
like a fox.

(The image is Fox and Crescent Moon by Kobayashi Kiyochika.)

Autumn’s Song
by Theodora Goss

You are not alone.

If they could, the oaks would bend down to take your hands,
bowing and saying, Lady, come dance with us.
The elder bushes would offer their berries to hang
from your ears or around your neck.
The wild clematis known as Traveler’s Joy
would give you its star-shaped blossoms for your crown.
And the maples would offer their leaves,
russet and amber and gold,
for your ball gown.

The wild geese flying south would call to you, Lady,
we will tell your sister, Summer, that you are well.
You would reply, Yes, bring her this news —
the world is old, old, yet we have friends.
The squirrels gathering nuts, the garnet hips
of the wild roses, the birches with their white bark.

You would dress yourself in mist and early frost
to tread the autumn dances — the dance of fire
and fallen leaves, the expectation of snow.
And when your sister Winter pays a visit,
You would give her tea in a ceramic cup,
bread and honey on a wooden plate.

You would nod, as women do, and tell each other,
The world is more magical than we know.

You are not alone.

Listen: the pines are whispering their love,
and the sky herself, gray and low, bends down
to kiss you on both cheeks. Daughter, she says,
I am always with you. Listen: my winds are singing
autumn’s song.

The image is Autumn by Elizabeth Sonrel.

The Sensitive Woman
by Theodora Goss

There are days on which I am a thunderstorm,
and days on which I am an eggshell. Today,
I am so fragile that if you breathed on me,
I would break apart. The pieces of me would lie
on the kitchen floor, over the hard gray tiles,
my torso in fragments, my heart like a shattered cup,
one eye near the sink, one near the refrigerator,
staring upward, blinking.

There is a story about a woman so sensitive
that she could be bruised by the brush of a swallow’s wing,
that the cold light of the moon would burn her cheek.
There is a story about a woman who wept at the fall
of a rose petal, at the sight of a spider’s web,
at a line from Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”
There is a story about a woman who could not be
consoled when she heard a single measure of Brahms,
or watched the sun setting over Budapest.
Her tears flowed into the Danube.
There are days on which I am all these women.

I would like to write a poem comparing myself
to a thunderstorm raging down the valleys,
battering the rocks, flattening the willow trees.
But today a raindrop could drown me. Today, a breeze
could tear me apart, send ragged bits of me flying
like white tufts of milkweed from the pod.
Hush. Don’t breathe, don’t speak, handle me gently.
Today, a word of yours, no matter how kind,
would be too hard to bear.

(The image is Portrait of Dora Maar with a Crown of Flowers by Pablo Picasso.)

The Avalanche
by Theodora Goss

It occurs to me that you resemble
a beautiful avalanche. So far,
you have toppled my pine trees,
buried my villages, brought down
all the telephone wires. You leave
a trail of pristine destruction
wherever you go.

And I can only stand here,
watching white drifts of snow
cover this mountain like the feathers
of an egret perched on its peak,
while a slab of snowpack slides
down the path with a sound like giants
grinding bones between their molars —
waiting, with fear and admiration,
for the moment I too will be buried,
my mouth filled with light,
in a kind of cold radiance.

(The image is Simplon Pass: Avalanche Track by John Singer Sargent.)