July 2019
Bionote: I currently work at The Brattleboro Retreat, a mental hospital in Southern Vermont, where I work as both a Subsitute Teacher in their special education school and as a Mental Health Worker on their inpatient units. Recently some of my poetry has come out of this work. Two of the poems I am submitting here, “The Black Wolf of Your Past” and "The Ladder,” are included in a chapbook, Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper, which still remains in search of a publisher. My most recent full-length collection is Thesaurus of Separation (Phoenicia Publishing, 2016), which is in large part an elegy for my friend and partner, Amelia Hancock, who preferred to be known as Amelia X.
The Black Wolf of Your Past
Suppose you do change your life,
and the black wolf,
which was once your shadow,
silently howls against this extinction.
What do you then do for this feral
darkness out of which you grew,
which has trailed you all your life
with a loyalty reserved for pets?
You see it cower, shrink back––deep
into the dog-house of your thoughts,
the long leash of its reach diminished.
What do you do for this wolf
you have fed since birth . . .
throw it a bone?
The Ladder
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
-Matthew 22:37-40
And you see yourself struggling up this ladder
toward some intangible paradigm of self-love,
painfully stepping up from each lower rung
of self-loathing to the next one of lesser loathing,
where you hope to glimpse a kinder, gentler self,
save your soles this soreness of effort,
finally see the beauty in your angular,
asymmetrical face, your awkward gait,
and your slow ability to forgive yourself,
but the balls of your bare feet have become
bruised by each rung’s unforgiving resistance
to the weight of your body and purpose,
so you can hardly step up anymore,
when the revelation comes to you
in that sudden balancing act atop the ladder,
now splayed, A-like, to each side of you,
where all the limits of the room: walls, ceiling,
floor, remain out of reach, but nonetheless,
the infinity of love now seems within reach
in that yonder of an ideal world,
as there, in the wobbly stillness, you realize
how walking on air could be the ultimate state,
where the pain of each step would no longer exist,
and the air would embrace you, every part of you,
right down to your black and blue sole, and the air
would embrace everyone––except your neighbor,
the one we haven’t yet addressed in this poem,
who stands, grounded, holding your ladder,
tensing every muscle to jump and catch you.
Double-Goer
In the bathroom, I extend my hand
through the brittle veil before me,
You look familiar, do I know you?
He offers me back his limpid grip,
then winks and smirks, Consider me
the culmination of your reflections.
Preoccupied with his toilette, he turns,
scarlet toothbrush in hand, and
waves its pasty tip as if conducting
all the interruptions I might make.
Then, bowing to the sink, he sputters
between his teeth a spumy dictum
I can’t quite catch. I want to make
my small talk big, be all buddy-buddy,
and oracular, but the faucet drowns
my words; silence glasses over his face.
“The Ladder” was originally published in Crosswinds Poetry Journal
“The Black Wolf of Your Past" was originally published in Avatar Review
© 2019 Tim Mayo
“The Black Wolf of Your Past" was originally published in Avatar Review
© 2019 Tim Mayo
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