POEMS BY
SHANITA BIGELOW
Uphill
This time passion creeps forward, upheaval of capricious shame. I wanted to stop
along the road, felt the need to take a picture of the scene, but it was not for the taking. Held,
a flash, only in memory now, the heron and the woman, all that blue against
murk of pond, destabilizing, uncut grasses. Let it grow. I wondered how
the unholy of us come to be that kind of blue and everlasting. I am reminded, again
and again, that my failures are not whole or holy, not an undoing or undone—they make me
the made of me. I am coming to terms with the disembodied languages of loss, how
to carry a tune in tears. I no longer surrender to false starts, delayed learning, the progress
of pen and bone. I am not the woman in blue or the heron. I am not narrator or scene. I am
the grasses and the pond, each blade and drop, the sky and feeder body—lake or river. I am
the observed ear, the languishing latitude at which any speed can get you there.
Crushed pine
In the backyard, there’s foliage and crab grass, hares and wild strawberries, there’s a temple of
overgrowth and the freed spine of spring.
In the overhand between branches and balcony, between shadow and spleen, there is another way of
wanting.
The crab spider colors itself cream or orange or yellow. The crab spider resembles its home flower,
foliage, ground. How does it remake itself in the wake of a deranged moon, the hollow of a tree, home
again, for another.
Walk toward the eddy. Bubble fast the below taste of sky swelling into rearview. The crows were
foreshadowing the demise of summer, the windswept creep of autumn’s thumb. They shadowed the
alley, towering, cawing on the roof of the building next door. Looking for their next meal.
I hunger in the wake of a spider’s shadow. Modern living requires plunging into, eyes closed, wallet
first. I believe in the honeyed crooning of dusk. I believe in the premise of unseen hands, clapping,
resting, and wrestling with life beyond the living. The echo, a grave and musty misnomer for my
grandfather’s booming voice, resists its own texture in the shape of buttermilk biscuits and coffee with
heavy cream. Run into the pine. Feel the festive and hearty mirth. Carry all the carved wood home
and see it settle into frames, onto walls and into attics. We cannot hide who we are. I see the crowned
moon midday and wonder
if there’s space enough for mercy. Is there room here for tension and rest? The crow speaks of cloud
volume and speed, how the wind carries an echo of a name toward retribution. Who are these flowers
for? Where does the stuttering hand of hate call home?
There is a war going on today. There is a family that no longer exists. They were murdered whole,
erased. That is a misnomer for applaud, for “self-defense.”
I seek the crushed pine of tomorrow. I seek the clouded bone of my ancestors, a melody of fraught
light, in a wave of stratus clouds.
Shanita Bigelow is a poet and educator. Her poetry can be found in Inverted Syntax (Fissured Tongue Series), Four Way Review, Bombay Gin, New American Writing, Callaloo, and African American Review, among other publications.