In the Spaces of Secret Enclosure
BY BRENDA HILLMAN
The clouds don’t think
it’s wise to write
without them. They bring space
from the desert
inside. The cloudiness
is placed into paper. Unhappiness is not a failure.
The child waits for words
to come in.
She’s been sent
to her room for a while;
she touches each word as she writes. The desk
has old-timey
gold paint. The clouds
bring news from the desert;
it might rain on
the hard soil outside:
caliche.
The spaces fold feeling in. In the room where you learn
to write, music can visit your soul,
the music is snagged
from a dove
but how does it perch
on the cactus?
You kneel
& look out at the street. Each word
can be asked to feel
better. Angles in A’s & N’s. Angles & angels
have angles. You can sometimes
tell lies in your diary, you can wear the key
on a string.
The key has a hole
for the string & you can always say no in your diary
but children
should not talk back. The desert
cannot talk back
practically all
the way west to the sea.
In summer your family will go to there. In
the room where you try to write,
full words fold
feeling in. Unhappiness is not a failure. Cursive writing
has curves & angles. The top of the bed
looks like cursive.
You hear your mother’s wind-chimes out back,
they’re made out of slices of rock.
You can kneel
& look out at the street. Cloud-clotty dirt on the window.
They’ll wash it themselves to save money. Save
money save money save.
A room can feel like your mother. Active
imagination said your teacher.
Spelling words stacked on thick cardboard: spaghetti, indigo,
surprise. Why are most
grown-ups so busy, too
busy to talk to their children. You didn’t mean
to be sassy. Clouds move
like souls in heaven, cloud-clotty souls you can
see through. Oh
my soul, says Psalms. Souls can be solid
or see-through
all the way to the sea. Some souls
are boring
like gravel, granite-y gravel in suburbs. She kneels &
looks out of the window. Her father
says gravel costs money so don’t
go throwing it around now. How come
little rocks cost money?
Your soul says throw words around now.
In the room where you learn
to write, some
words fold feeling in. Some words
are never seen. Unhappiness has happiness
in it. Courteous clouds are floating
all the way west to the sea. We must not fall
short, says your father but children are
already short.
This gold paint
can peel if you pick at it. No need to
W-O-R-R-Y about writing, if you write
a wrong word
just erase it. The folks
who make desks,
where are they now?
Did they hate when
their desk went away? Did their
children need
to be sung to or ever
talk back sometimes?
Your mother sings at night but can’t stay.
She’s mending a broken
dish in the kitchen, mends it
by hand to save money, she puts Wilhold glue
with a toothpick on one side
of the broken place only.
You can put any thoughts in your diary,
it’s lucky
there are so many words
& so many start just alike,
miracle starts out like mirror, doily
looks like daily.
Did the folks who make things hate to
lose them? It’s hard to
make mothers
feel better. You can sing &
look out to the street.
Those front teeth
will straighten slowly, said the dentist
to your mother. He had funny teeth himself
& a little spit
came out when he said it,
spaces in teeth aren’t nothing, spaces
in words aren’t
nothing. Some clouds are higher
than others, maybe clouds
like angels have ranks.
Your mother is having tea now, you can tell by the click
as the cup is set in the saucer. The click has two syllables.
The ranks of the rain clouds deepen
floating over the desert. Clouds are not
disappointed. They help you
write your words down. Slow
teeth are not disappointed. Souls
can be not disappointed. Maybe
your mother isn’t even disappointed,
you hear her starting the chores,
you hear her humming a little. Rounder
raindrops fall faster now,
you think of a rock
you saw once, yellow dots in the desert. Rain had
left marks there forever,
from the higher ranks
of clouds, first separate as can be
then blended as if they’d
never been separate,
each drop falling from
nowhere to somewhere & into
your mind, other minds, finally
alive & whole.