two poems: Unstoried / The Rodin Exhibit by Mary Ann Honaker

unstoried

I would like to be divested of this idea of narrative,
that the plot of my life has turns it should or will make,
that I am arcing upwards as if toward a summit.
Let me instead be as directionless as a tree,

like pines flicking their feathery plumes outside
my window, whose thoughts are so large
and voices so long we cannot discern them,
who move so slowly no one can tell,

and move only to better taste of the sun.
Story is a tyranny: this getting things done,
how one event begets another, a logical sequence,
how end & meaning & purpose are the same.

Let me lose this word meaning. I desire
obsolescence, or to have a purpose incidental,
of which I am not aware; as a tree bends
to wind & searches for sun, and soothes us,
​
speedy beasts, with the blessing of being
silent, and living, and emphatically there.

 THE RODIN EXHIBIT, Peabody Essex, Salem, MA

​Here we have, among folds of fabric, a single hand. In this glass case, an arm. Notice the natural articulation of fingers. My lover adds more than the placards tell, happy to use his first degree for something. I honestly think it would be nothing if I left. I rest my chin on my hand and pull a serious moue in front of The Thinker, one of who knows how many. Rodin made molds you know, and cast and recast every image. The materials could change-- bronze, marble, plaster-- but the fingers are the same, the relaxed gesture. I've no makeup, and my fat shorts on, a faded tee from the Film Festival, but he'll use this image as a screen saver for months. Camille cast this arm again and again; her lover fused it to her body, or another woman's. I'm replaceable, you see, a human of a certain form, and another of the same mold would do as nicely. Calves and feet. A repeatable head. I'm indistinguishable from another.

​Mary Ann Honaker

is the author of It Will Happen Like This (YesNo Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in 2 Bridges, Drunk Monkeys, Euphony, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Off the Coast, Van Gogh’s Ear, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Mary Ann holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia, where she enjoys hiking the mountain trails.