Read More: A Brief Q&A with Shea Tuttle
Someday we will talk about other things:
chimpanzees and egrets, noodles al dente,
how the dentist talks while she’s
checking your overbite, how she’s so nice
you really want to answer. We’ll comment
on news about Papua New Guinea,
a human interest piece about powdered sugar
that you read after breakfast, something
I saw that you don’t need—not at all—
but you’d like it. We’ll take walks
because the sun is out.
We’ll cook because we want to.
We might mention, if we remember,
how a feather scared the dog again,
how our children giggled
until he ate it, how he sneezed afterward
four times. Maybe we will study
philosophy, not because we like it—
we don’t, not really—but just because we can.
We will go out for waffles and coffee,
we will tip the server well,
and as we walk out the door
into the rain, we will realize:
the whole time we were there
we talked about nothing
but marigolds, golden silverware,
hummingbird feeders,
what it looks like to see a mirror
in a mirror in a mirror.
After the illness
I have scoffed
and sneered
at happiness,
thought it shallow,
brushed it off like
a persistent fly,
a crumb of soil,
a pesky thought.
I repent.
If everything is
useless—and it is—
if everything is
burning—and it is—
I want:
a cup of tea,
a polyrhythm,
the sound and feel
of the ball
in the glove,
a soft bed in the
midafternoon,
a thistle too
wild and wooly
to pull, its stem
grown thick, its blooms
ephemeral,
its seeds drifting
into the pinks,
the daisies,
the black-eyed
Susan, the bulbs
I bought at the
grocery store
and planted in the
darkest January
whose names
I do not know.
I told myself
to pull the thistle,
but I kept walking
past it. I grew ill
and then well.
It grew four feet tall
and this morning
I looked out
the kitchen window
and saw two
goldfinches
perched on it,
one upside
down, stretching
for those seeds
like a lover
craves the beloved,
like a dying man
opens his mouth
for the host.
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Shea Tuttle is the author of Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers, co-author of Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights, and co-editor of two collections on faith and justice. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Bitch Media, Image, The Toast, and other outlets.
Read More: A Brief Q&A with Shea Tuttle