The Letdown

Falling into the hole you are shocked
by the slick treachery of air, its lack
of compassion. The deceptively friendly

air, giving you something to breathe
as you drop. The suddenly thin
air, when you for obvious reasons

prefer heft. The liberating air,
offering a less than welcome
freedom without explanations or

regrets. The air and its shady accomplice:
the ground. The ground in sober parson’s
colors, the air in a see-through dress,

the two of them laughing
like idiots as you disappear, and
more wounding than whatever lies

at the bottom (spikes, snakes, lava …)
is their willingness to leave you
so suddenly when you, having left off

believing in so much else, never
once doubted them, until now,
and now—what is left?

Trees

recuerdo la separación de sus árboles
—Silvia Goldman

a woman awoke from a coma
remembering everything about the world
except its trees

in winter she saw black snakes writhing
in the air between the light posts
rough knuckles split the ground
and lifted sidewalks

later she watched the unfurling of green
from upraised hands and fingers

in summer she shouted
at armies marching beside the road
long dark columns under tossing banners

then gold coins fell from the skies
withering to brittle husks
etched with unreadable faces

but what would you rather remember?
asked God one day
me, or the trees?
the woman laughed
trees are imaginary

she and God were sharing a bowl of olives
in the shade of an ancient waiter
who stood over them
with more olives in his arms
in case they were wanted

The New Pet

I don’t know whose idea the elephant was: who bought it (for peanuts!)
and walked it home and tied it up in the backyard and stuck a water pail

in front of it and left. Now it’s up to moi. Because je suis the mom. Before
I was a mom I was a dancer, then an astronaut, then a mayor. Now I am

a cupboard. Which has two words: cup, as in coffee and bras; board, as in
plank or a homophone of bored. But I am not bored, I am stressed, pressed

like cheap particle board into holding up weights I wasn’t intended for. Like
the elephant: I tiptoe around it. It is more than I can handle, as I always say.

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Mary Hawley is a poet, fiction writer, and literary translator (Spanish to English). Her poems, short stories, and translations have appeared in The Plentitudes, Fifth Wednesday, Latin American Literature Today, The Common, and elsewhere, and she received an Illinois Literary Award in fiction. Her poem “Trees” is part of a poetry and translation collaboration with Silvia Goldman. In the years since she first drafted the poem “The New Pet,” her daughter became an actual elephant keeper.