Bring Down the Chandeliers
By Tara Hardy
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Bring Down the Chandeliers - Tara Hardy
Chandeliers
Hummingbird
In the orphanage of my voice box
my father sits, fork and knife upright
on the table before him. He’s already cut
off my hummingbird and fed it
to our dog. Scientists can’t pin down
how hummingbirds are able to maintain
flight-flap at a pace so feverish when
energy expelled exceeds energy consumed.
In place of my hummingbird my father
drapes a bib, so he won’t have to look at his
handiwork. But behind the curtain
the nurse explains in some sort of
capacity retained exceeds capacity consumed
miracle I still have apparatus necessary
for flight. In an under the table deal of my
own I make faithful our dog, stroke the beast
hold to his nose the scent of his master.
Make a bid as mistress to tear limb from
limb the obstruction of my father on the runway
called my mouth, on the runway
called my other mouth. Itself an overcrowded
with cornered voices orphanage. As our hound
hones his scent, all the children I ever
wasn’t but was meant to be,
break open the roof, take wing,
and I speak
speak.
Daughter
What I want you to know is this:
My father did monster things to my child body.
This is a lamb’s truth.
Like pouring bleach over grass he burned his name into me.
What he took no one can repay.
Say this is a tax collector’s truth,
but also say this:
It did not make him powerful or grand.
He isn’t somewhere cackling on a distant hill.
He is at home, sleeping in a wool cap
on a sinking sofa because he snores
like the train that orphaned him at seven.
He is an old man with a garden, pinching
tomato bugs between thumb and forefinger.
You can say he is a doddering letch, but also say this:
Say he did the dishes, cooked; taught me how to fish.
There is a boat still floating at the wharf
from 1917, the same year he poked his
puckered head through his mother’s legs,
squinting. The boat’s rhythm against
the water is his wet lungs still pulling
breath. This is an organ’s truth.
And me, say I am half of him, his monster flesh.
Pulled from his injury on my mother like a fist.
Say I am a fist. I am not
the pasty faces of incest children
growing on the underbelly of a log,
color of the way-inside of lettuce.
I am spunneling, alive, and red. This is an artery’s truth.
You can say I am half-blooded monster,
but also say this: my
blood does not make a pity trip.
The fist of me unfolds to pluck the quill of him from my throat and
regularly fill it. This is a pen’s truth.
Six years ago, crossing his state’s line
caused my body to clutch itself so completely
I couldn’t pee for three days.
Except in a long thin terrified stream.
A scream as long would have melted the road. The sticky tar of it.
Say he stole from me the right
to be around to bury him,
but also say this:
I am not the road of tar. I was only stuck to it.
A wingless, but determined beast.
This is a daughter’s truth.
Adam’s Rib
When a man I love hit a woman I love,
what I wish I’d said, but didn’t:
Inside Adam’s rib is a kitchen. A yellow
kitchen. Inside Adam’s rib is a container
of bees. Of scars. Of chases.
Inside Adam’s rib is a wish. A woman
is a wish. For something more than salt
on your tongue. A woman is a wish
for something to puncture lonely.
A woman is a balm. Inside Adam’s rib
is a remedy. A resurrection.
A spontaneous eruption
of wings. All of our possibilities
peeking skull-out from between