Rubble

Here, whence all have departed or will do,
here airless, (1) each dead child coiled,
a white serpent, one at each little pitcher
of milk, now empty. (2) Coldest of winds
have blown this hair, and mesh of seaweed
snarled these miniatures of hands; (3) bones piled up
like coal, animal bones shaped like golf balls, (4)
how they disturb the brown silence of a field
lying ecstatic with itself. (5) Frosted eyes
there were that lifted altars; (6) the head,
charred, featureless—the unknown mean—
is thrust from the waters like a flame, (7)
like the sea in the moon’s blood ray. (8)
Behold what quiet settles on the world. (9)

—PAUL VERMEERSCH

1. From Dream Song No. 19, by John Berryman. First published in 1959.
 Berryman committed suicide on January 7, 1972.
2. From the poem “Edge,” by Sylvia Plath. Poem dated February 5, 1963.
 Plath committed suicide on February 11, 1963.
3. From the poem “For My Daughter,” by Weldon Kees. First published in
 1943. Kees committed suicide, it is generally assumed, on July 18, 1955.
4. From the poem “Loving the Killer,” by Anne Sexton. First published in
 1969. Sexton committed suicide on October 4, 1974.
5. From the poem “The Ravens,” by Georg Trakl. First published in 1913.
 Trakl committed suicide on November 3, 1914.
6. From the poem “At Melville’s Tomb,” by Hart Crane. First published in
 1926. Crane committed suicide on April 27, 1932.
7. From the poem “Burning the Letters,” by Randall Jarrell. First published in 1945. Jarrell committed suicide, it is widely suspected, on October 14, 1965.
8. From the poem “Corona,” by Paul Celan. First published in 1952. Celan
 committed suicide on April 20, 1970.
9. From the untitled poem that begins “Past one o’clock…,” by Vladimir
 Mayakovsky, found among his papers after his death and containing
 lines also paraphrased in his suicide note. Mayakovsky committed suicide
 on April 14, 1930.

(Originally published Christmas, 2010.)