Poetry: Selections from Monica Fuglei

There is No Man

There is:

no wife back at home,

no tension in the rope,

no sons playing at his feet,

no bird singing.

A small river of pebbles flowing,

interring broken bones

beneath the roar of wind.

No boot on his right foot

no breath in his lungs,

no photograph of his wife,

no pain in head or heart.

A mountain’s history inked in forensics and fiber,

memories long made dust,

written in a language that needs no translation.

 

When the City is a Scar

The scars themselves I offered to wipe away. He shook his head. “How would I know myself?” - Circe, Madeline Miller

 

and places write themselves within,

our fingers move to map the skin,

the heart. Journeys can be dangerous,

one turn and suddenly

the nerve crash of memory

burns through and

 

I am

 

twelve, knee cut, gravel filled, I weep in the streets of Minden,

fallen off this too-big bike. My father saying “Get up. Catch up. You

must not walk.” Pock are dents shadowing this space

of air-flared nerves and rough voices.

 

Or I am the closing, constriction, melding,

the nerves, the skin. Omaha fires through me, searing

along chest, along spine, made small by smiles by whisper by

uninvited hands by violation.  

 

Or I am the quiet. Denver’s river map silvered along my belly,

life phoenixed - ended and reformed, children conceived,

grown plump, birthed. Their names and dates marked

in streets, in skin, in white flames on my body.

 

‘Epi’ the great Greek outer,

thinner than we’d like to admit and dermis, thick

rich with nerves, hair, sweat, finally sub

that binds our largest part to the rest of us: Triune.

 

Marked by something lasting, adhering layers

into something tender,weaker, new.

When the city is a scar you haven’t touched

be slow, such things can hurt.

At the Start of War

At the start of war, my daughter and I play a word game

 

We watch, helpless. Correspondents

talk of troops, cartoon map movement,

and speak strategy. At midnight, we break

our eyes from the news, grab

our phones, toss our own opening

salvos, this new midnight ritual:

orate

adieu

 

Halfway across the globe, places we barely know

explode. A CNN reporter dons his flak jacket.

We roll the names of foreign cities

through our mouths: Odessa, Kiev, Kharkiv, Donbas.

We want to understand, to unpuzzle this conflict.

fiend

elves

 

19 years ago, full of shock and awe and postpartum

hormones, I held her small body as missiles rained on Baghdad,

dreamed she would know less loss, a world without war.

I wanted her to hold hope to the light, to believe.

clone

glove

 

The Russian leader commits war crimes in the first

twelve hours. 13 Ukrainian border guards protect their island,

tell a naval battalion to “Go fuck yourselves.”

glove

bloke

 

But in our living room, we word and worry,

solve our puzzle together.

elope

<splendid>

 

The war continues.

bloke

Monica Fuglei, a Nebraska-born Coloradan in awe of the mountains, teaches composition and creative writing at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Colorado and is the author of two chapbooks, Parts and Gathering. Her work has most recently been published in Mason Street, Caustic Frolic, and Progenitor Magazine.