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Susanna Childress
He does not suffer well. This is because
he is beautiful, astounding
as the eye of a peacock feather,
tinctured blue and green, feathers within feathers,
shivering, a beauty beyond what even he is aware,
cheekbones sheltering the glory
of his ductless spleen, the blood’s
able proteins, each cell’s flagellar
motor, yes, down to that detail, and yes, too,
with that in mind, every buckle of the spine chicaning
its Grecian looks up the neck to the brow,
the nose, lashes giraffe-long
over the open tide what could be
sea-gray or sea-green of his eyes
and what’s more is his own unknowing, though
in some yawning pocket of that striking sundown
body—perhaps his finger creases—
he must be aware of it, a magnificence most of us
can only fathom: umber,
buttery ribbon of firefly’s gut, weathervane’s
volte-face, the rent of verility over the orchard
from last year’s fire, now, his whole
head hot as paraffin wax, ears
red-tipped mangoes ripening
on the sill, lips a pallid clair de lune, he offers music,
he’s brimming with it: accordian lungs, carotid
viola, toms of phleghm like lungs
themselves, bless him, my stunning husband
prostrate beside me, tacit, grumpy
as peat bog, willing the bronchial tubes to muscilate,
or at least to sleep so hard the bonnyclabber
will not bother—this man whose even
bilious corners speak enzyme,
rhizome, intelligent design—
will wake tomorrow feeling not a lick better, will rasp
among the antibodies, silt my hand to his cheek
and say to my fingers
as if fiberoptic points of joy, Principessa,
have you any broth of bone for me? And when
I bring a tray, steaming with soup, a single
Cymbidium orchid tucked beneath his spoon,
he’ll sit up slowly,
gazing into the bowl
with a forlorn welcome for his own
face, and pray his prayers aloud.
Susanna Childress is a PhD candidate in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University and currently teaches at Hope College in Holland, MI. Her first volume of poetry, Jagged with Love, was selected by Billy Collins for the 2005 Brittingham Poetry Prize with publication by the University of Wisconsin Press. Susanna has recently published poetry or short fiction in The Missouri Review, Image, The Notre Dame Review, Third Coast, Gargoyle, and Runes.
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