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Mary Szybist

Mary Szybist Books

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“There were so many things I wanted to tell you. Or rather, I wished to have things that I wanted to tell you. What a thing, to be with you and have no words for it. What a thing, to be outcast like that. And then everything unfastened. It was like something was always dissolving inside you— Already it's hard to remember how you used to comb your hair or how you tilted your broad face in green shade. Now what seas, what meanings can I place in you?”

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Book:Incarnadine: Poems
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“Apology I didn't mean to say so much to you. I should have thought to let the evening end by looking at the stars subdued into their antique blue and alabaster hues. Such looking would have fit with my intent. I didn't mean to speak that way to you. If I could take it back, I'd take it, undo it, and replace it with the things I meant to give—not what I let slip (it's true) like any pristine star of ornamental hue. I do not always do what I intend. I didn't mean to say so much to you. It slipped before I saw, before I knew. Or do we always do what we intend? Perhaps it's true and all along I knew what I was saying—but how I wanted you. I should have thought to let the evening end. The placid stars seemed filled and then subdued by what I did and did not want to do.”

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“Via Negativa Sometimes it's too hard with words or dark or silence. Tonight I want a prayer of high-rouged cheekbones and light: a litany of back-lit figures, lithe and slim, draped in fabrics soft and wrinkleless and pale as onion slivers. Figures that won't stumble or cough: sleek kid-gloved Astaires who'll lift ladies with glamorous sweeps in their hair— They'll bubble and glitter like champagne. They'll whisper and lean and waltz and wink effortlessly as figurines twirling in music boxes, as skaters in their dreams. And the prayer will not be crowded. You'll hear each click of staccato heel echo through the glassy ballrooms—too few shimmering skirts; the prayer will seem to ache for more. But the prayer will not ache. When we enter, its chandeliers and skies will blush with pleasure. Inside we will be weightless, and our goodness will not matter in a prayer so light, so empty it will float.”

PoetryPoemDancingGrantedAllusionMary SzybistFred Astaire
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“Approaching Elegy It's hard to believe you are dying: like looking at a Jamesian scene, skipping past happiness to a garden bench beyond the trees. You fill the form of heroine: you sit in your black dress, too tired to imagine the rest of yourself. An old suitor appears, grabs you possibly too forcefully by the wrists (he is still impossibly in love—). You disengage your wrists. He leans forward, looks into your eyes, which you close—as if you were all by yourself. He moves closer, talking very fast about happiness. He places his cloak on your shoulders, imagines he'll rescue you. Around you, forms grow darker: house, branch, hydrangea. Above you, freckled expanses of leaves form the beginnings of barbed, lopsided shrouds—a possible solace. If only his kiss could please you, I wouldn't need to imagine past the clean architecture of the story. And perhaps it is wrong to look past that. Wrong to ask about happiness. Past midnight, he continues to offer himself. Before, he had offered aimless passion, but now (you see it for yourself) he has an idea: he points into the darkness. He is grave, formal. The dark has swallowed the long shadows of the oaks (though not your unhappiness) —and it is about to swallow you. Soon, it will no longer be possible (there is just one more page to turn) for me to look through your eyes, so I would like to imagine for you: something past tragedy. Just as I would like to imagine that we are not in danger, that we have selves more solid than stars, that we are safe in the pages of books we can reopen to look at each other. Except that we are not women formed of words, but of impossible longings. What was it that you wanted besides happiness? You are dying. I have no ideas about happiness and no patience to imagine it possible. Soon you will not be the heroine; you will not be yourself. And it's not that you've lost the formula; your form is losing you. Look at how brave you are: I imagined the great point was to be happy, as happy as possible with the quick forms that imagine us—but the last time I looked there you were—distant and bright in the not so blue darkness, imagining yourself.”

PoetryPoemGrantedMary Szybist
Book:Granted
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“The Technique of the Lifelike I had imagined death thrillingly: my arms held behind to restrain their frivolous occasions, the whole of me bending like a tall yellow lily before you. Yet set see how my hands go on with their thoughts. See how I fold and fold my handkerchief. I am not a great lady. I don't swoon with love. My stricken, I cannot render you as you move quickly toward your skillful execution, your shoulders tossing their indifference to the dark, your face overlaid with stage effects. You grow irresistibly small. Your hands and feet expire. This is where sculpture also fails, this is where I turn wholly unattached and without debt. What is the use of crowning you in glory? Now my fingers make bowls for rain: in your honor: hope for nothing. We knew our disposition long ago.”

PoetryPoemGrantedMary Szybist
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“Annunciation: Eve to Ave The wings behind the man I never saw. But often, afterward, I dreamed his lips, remembered the slight angle of his hips, his feet among the tulips and the straw. I liked the way his voice deepened as he called. As for the words, I liked the showmanship with which he spoke them. Behind him, distant ships went still; the water was smooth as his jaw— And when I learned that he was not a man— bullwhip, horsewhip, unzip, I could have crawled through thorn and bee, the thick of hive, rosehip, courtship, lordship, gossip and lavender. (But I was quiet, quiet as eagerness—that astonished, dutiful fall.)”

PoetryReligiousPoemAngelVirgin MaryMary SzybistIncarnadineAnnunciation
Book:Incarnadine: Poems
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