Poetry | August 19, 2021
Poem by V. Penelope Pelizzon
V. Penelope Pelizzon
Of Vinegar Of Pearl (an excerpt)
V. Penelope Pelizzon
“The elements return to the body of their mother.” —Paracelsus
1.
Like pulp-and-spittle wasps’ nests
built in their season to last
only until winter, bones
crumble in her as she sits.
She sections the day’s clemen-
cies into mouthfuls, hawks out
any bitter pips, swallows
good pungence with sips of smoke
—Lapsang Souchong or Laphroaig,
depending on the hour—
preferring solitude to
solicitude from the kind,
including her children who
were hard to bear and are hard
now to hear. Nine decades have
drawn her, masterwork of ten-
don and vein illustrating
frailty condensing to one
ferocious node, a will still
refusing to cede. But now?
When the heart no longer turns
the blood’s tide. When fluid pools,
refusing to be sluiced back
into its channels. She’s walked
so far down the strand that seals
barely lift their heads as she
steps over them, returning
finally to her sisters.
She’s up to her knees now in
a flosh of her body’s own
sea-wash. Dying? Or dying-
ish? Is this it? Is it this?
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