Angie Macri

Angie Macri is the author of Sunset Cue (Bordighera), winner of the Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize, and Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs and teaches at Hendrix College. “Let your indulgence set me free” takes its title from Shakespeare. https://angiemacri.wordpress.com

Let your indulgence set me free,

the cave’s mouth open, alone
as a man on the forest floor, born as man on stone,
the dislocation of pine, of stone, of pain,
water rising again.
Give the cave a name, pine, paron, rain,
not going inside as so many
have before but looking in the space,
a mouth opening to the name
caught in your throat as you stand
in the rain like a pine, a stone, like a man,
water braiding
on the floor, woods
opening, not having hands
or charms like you but breath
like you from the dirt on the forest floor,
the stone from which you are formed
and which you left.

First give the cave a name, pine, paron, rain,
not after you go inside as so many have before
but when standing here, looking in the space,
a mouth opening
to the name caught in your throat.
You wait in the rain like a pine, a stone, a man,
water braiding
on the floor, woods
opening, a forest that men in camps
planted after all forests were gone, one charm
you know well, a boy in a far-
off city then but found in books and learned
and told. The cave’s mouth
was open then as well. The men went in and out,
echoing. Now you wait,
not yet inside the cave, not yet back in all the magic
we already know, dislocation
of stone, of pine, of pain,
water rising again.

Why do I look like Persephone in this? asked the child

in the nightgown her sister handed down.
Her grandmother had chosen cotton,
unrolled the bolt
and cut the fabric, then pinned and cut the pattern
to stitch each piece together,

adding ruffles at the shoulders, neck, and bottom
to make the gown even better. The asters
in the cloth held blue and white the same as sky, and lupines
purple flames, so many yellow eyes.
Stems crossed each other with legs and arms
like girls running down a road

in a world full of the right balance of rain and light,
their mother watching from behind.
Her oldest grown and gone,
the mother saved the gown, washed and washed,
for when this youngest child would finally grow this size.

Because you are.