My Mystic
My mystic isn't old enough
to be my mother.
She yells “No!” when she
laughs at my jokes.
She can’t keep anything down
and doesn’t drink, except for whiskey, wine, and water.
My mystic is her father’s
daughter.
My mystic has her own monk, a
hermit who had his own monk.
Out on a boat on the Atlantic
with a friend, tossed around, my mystic screams with laughter when they don’t
drown.
My mystic has an early
edition of Proust in a closet with her sheets and towels. Any house sitter
could steal it, but no one does.
My mystic picks at her
croissant in the dark, Swann’s Way in her lap.
My mystic wants to know all
about my men, so I tell her. She groans, and then we talk about the new Pope.
She thinks he has a humble face.
From her apartment we can see
an orange neon sign across the Cambridge green. At dusk it tints the dirty
snow. My mystic used to run in and out of that hotel lobby with her best
friend, stealing candy.
Now children crawl all over
my mystic. In the pockets of her vest (the color of their red toboggan) they
find hard candy.
My mystic is a sister. Is
lilacs. Is toast.
My mystic has already bought
her plot.
My mystic is both the crone
and the infant in the fairy tale.
My mystic is a fairy. She
flies everywhere but leaves no carbon footprint.
My mystic has a device.
Children text my mystic from L. A., Dubai, Oxford, Paris.
My mystic might have been
named Affliction or Delight if born at sea in 1620.
Or, two centuries later, out
of Cobh and mad in steerage: perhaps Theresa.
My mystic has lips the color
of a rose named for the Cathars, who had but one sacrament: consolation.
