Dorianne Laux's "How It Will Happen, When"

After reading the wonderful interview with Dorianne Laux in the fall edition of Southern Hum, I sought out her work. I have been falling in love with it the past several weeks. Late last night while I was up, not feeling well, too many thoughts in my head, I read "How It Will Happen, When."

Meridith






How It Will Happen, When



There you are, exhausted from a night of crying, curled up on the couch,
the floor, at the foot of the bed, anywhere you fall you fall down crying,
half amazed at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are, his socks, his shirt, your underwear
and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile next to the bathroom door,
and you fall down again. Someday, years from now, things will be
different, the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, sliding across the high shine of wax
on the wood floor. You'll be peeling an orange or watching a bird
spring from the edge of the rooftop next door, noticing how,
for an instant, its body is stopped on the air, only a moment before
gathering the will to fly into the ruff at its wings and then doing it:
flying. You'll be reading, and for a moment there will be a word
you don't understand, a simple word like now or what or is
and you'll ponder over it like a child discovering language.
Is you'll say over and over until it begins to make sense, and that's
when you'll say it, for the first time, out loud: He's dead. He's not
coming back. And it will be the first time you believe it.





This poem is from Dorianne Laux's book Smoke, (BOA, editions 2000). Please visit Blue Flower Arts for more information on Dorianne Laux and her work