The Scales

What kind of creature are you?

Welcome, and a warm first hello to the newcomers!

I’m so happy you’re here.

Each of these Sunday poetry collections centers loosely around a tarot card, and this week we’re checking in with Justice.

This card reminds me that being honest with myself is the first step toward balance.

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CONTENTS:

1. Your Pack

2. The Sharp Edge

YOUR PACK

“What kind of creature are you?”
Sang the squirrel from its tree,
As it peered down through the branches and got a look at me.
One eye turned my way, white-rimmed:
For a moment, my body was thirteen,
Intent in the bathroom mirror,
Clumsy seventh-grade eyeliner.

Whatever did I need to brighten those sweet peepers for?
I had never been more new,
More eager to be the light and the beauty,
More pure in my youth.

“Oh, squirrel, I wish I could say,
But I do not know myself.
Although, I can tell you this:
These days,
I don’t want to be one of those people
Who runs their body into the ground,
Then asks anybody who’s around
For a sash to show their sacrifice."

Slashing through the womb sounds savage,
But if the mother-space becomes dangerous,
It can no longer be trusted to hold what it contains,
And cannot trust those yes-men who remain to remain nice.

Gray squirrel pondered, 
Stroked bushy tail as one might a fine mustache. 
“If you don’t want to be people,
You could be one of us,” they said. 
“The animals I know are happy,
And the humans I know ache in ways I do not understand. 
They spend so much of each day
Worrying over things that never come to pass.”

I regarded the squirrel with my own green eye.
“What kind of creature should I become, little friend?
I hear the sparrow-choir is hiring,
Would they have me without wings?

I hear the mice are kind.
I hear they make good soup in the winter.
Do you think their kitchen needs a pair of hands like mine?

Perhaps the swans would adopt me.
I hear they excel at interspecies kindness,
Give hugs with their necks,
And their feathers: oh, how they shine.”

Gray squirrel showed me their other eye,
All shocking-milky-white.
“You look like the wolves I know:
You hold yourself the same way,
And you’re built for the snow.
Just be yourself, Lizzy,
And your pack will find you in its time.”

THE SHARP EDGE

My spear is heavy,
But its balance is unmatched.
Each night, I sit by the fire
And I work the sharp edge 
With a stone I plucked from the river.
My father told me to be patient looking for my stone,
To rest my eyes on the water, and wait,
Until the right rock tumbled into my hand. 

I work the sharp edge. 
I sit with the memories as they rise to the surface. 
My father is cold in the ground now,
But my arms have never been stronger,
And, though I was born a woman,
I look more like him with each day.
I find myself reaching for the same outfit he favored:
Shoes to cradle a working-class spine,
Flannel shirt, jeans that can rip without heartbreak.

I work the sharp edge. 
I consider what kind of person my father made:
My hands look like his,
So do my feet.
When I weep at how his life ended,
I remember that his toes still walk the earth each day.
I recall that his fingers live at the ends of my arms.
I hope that my heart is as kind as his,
But, please, much healthier.
I pray for more years than he lived. 

I work the sharp edge.
My river-rock hones keen.
Atoms return to alignment,
As does routine.