The Closet

(...after my Mother’s death) Here not long enough after the hospital happened I find her closet lying empty and stop my play And go in and crane up at three blackwire hangers Which quiver, airy, released. They appear to enjoy Their new distance, cognizance born of the absence Of anything else. The closet has been cleaned out Full-flush as surgeries where the hangers could be Amiable scalpels though they just as well would be Themselves, in basements, glovelessly scraping uteri But, here, pure, transfigured heavenward, they’re Birds, whose wingspans expand by excluding me. Their Range is enlarged by loss. They’d leave buzzards Measly as moths: and the hatshelf is even higher!— As the sky over a prairie, an undotted desert where Nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. I’ve fled At ambush, tag, age: six, must I face this, can I have my hide-and-seek hole back now please, the Clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? Only The hangers are at home here. Come heir to this Rare element, fluent, their skeletal grace sings Of the ease with which they let go the dress, slip, Housecoat or blouse, so absolvingly. Free, they fly Trim, triangular, augurs leapt ahead from some geometric God who soars stripped (of flesh, it is said): catnip To a brat placated by model airplane kits kids My size lack motorskills for, I wind up glue-scabbed, Pawing goo-goo fingernails, glaze skins fun to peer in as Frost-i-glass doors ... But the closet has no windows, Opaque or sheer: I must shut my eyes, shrink within To peep into this wall. Soliciting sleep I’ll dream Mother spilled and cold, unpillowed, the operating- Table cracked to goad delivery: its stirrups slack, Its forceps closed: by it I’ll see mobs of obstetrical Personnel kneel proud, congratulatory, cooing And oohing and hold the dead infant up to the dead Woman’s face as if for approval, the prompted Beholding, tears, a zoomshot kiss. White-masked Doctors and nurses patting each other on the back, Which is how in the Old West a hangman, if He was good, could gauge the heft of his intended ... Awake, the hangers are sharper, knife-’n’-slice, I jump Helplessly to catch them to twist them clear, Mis-shape them whole, sail them across the small air Space of the closet. I shall find room enough here By excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.