In My Fiftieth Year
In my fiftieth year I seem to be going quiet.
Friends ask what's happening.
My answers are fewer than they used to be,
saving themselves
like secrets to share later.
Storm outside my window
tosses the boughs of the hill cypress
like feathers. Gulls
skitter past on drunken wings.
I kiss my own hands
and press them to the glass.
I sit, finally, and listen to Whatever.
Not to be grim--
a family tendency toward grimness
having shown itself already--
my heart has felt enough shattering to know
mending is her birthright.
A boxer's nose,
scarred by personal history,
irreparably dented by connection.
Given the ring we are all born into
no blow is surprising, but
still, I am surprised.
Despite--or perhaps because of that,
my heart sings like a half-wrecked beauty
with no mirror to dismay her
gardening in daylight,
still gardening at dusk.
I am old enough to know that those
who say there are no mistakes
are themselves mistaken.
At last in the war against my self
I have found the good sense to surrender
and, Oh Blessed Conqueror,
my first word to my disheveled captive
must be, as promised, "freedom."
by Holly L. Thomas
© 2006