Ars Poetica Poem by J.L. Nash

Although she understood what it meant to be him
She saw earlier than he did what it was to lose everything
And so she tried to bury all that was within her
She threw it into the lagoon
Dug holes beneath coconut trees
But palms don’t sit deep enough
And the tide brought everything back
She’d try to attend to it
In secret, behind a closed door
With music loud and images moving
But instead of keeping it all as some kind of manageable
Mass it grew, nurtured by the privation of light

Although she understood what it meant to be him
She asked for photographs of happy days
Of the conventional, as if this might reinforce some sense of normality
But he gave her scans of his brain
X-rays of his head
A spectral reminder of what they both shared
His feint facial contours wrapped around bone
Missing and replaced teeth testament to
Age and gnawing life through flesh her own teeth breaking
There was no escape from the emergent sense
Of fight within her

Although she understood what it meant to be him
Most of what she wanted to become
Involved her leaving traces of him
Behind her on the one road between the houses
Scatterings of genealogy marking the
Bends delineating which side
On which to drive
She was always confused as to which side was the right side
When the wind was pushing across her face her bones her brain
Scanned with her eyes to see if all the
Parts had fallen and if she was free
There is no escape from the DNA of creation