The Mangrove House
Submitted by Haggard & Halloo on October 22, 2008 – 2:19 pmOne Comment
The Mangrove House
by sandra beasley
In April I lined up my best figurines
and brought the hammer down repeatedly.
I made a pile of hands, a pile of eyes:
only the mouths escaped, lipping
quietly under the bed. In May
I built a house in the root of a mangrove
and slithered in on my elbows,
weaving the door shut behind me.
They thought I needed rescuing.
They dragged me out. They sluiced vinegar
through my veins. They tied magnets
to my wrists. The doctors pronounced me
Fit as a fiddle. Now, they string me up.
They wax me down. My mother tucks me
under her chin, and I sleep. My father
plucks every hollow, and I sing.
©
“Mangroves (generally) are trees and shrubs that grow in saline coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics.” thanks Wilk. Huh, just when you find some comfortable refuge of sanctuary, along comes someone to screw it all up. I still have a few Star Wars figurines left over from the 70′s: 3-po, sandman, and leia from Empire Strikes Back. I never hit em with the hammer but i think i buried some of them alive more than once…some never to rise again.
Poem is good metaphor…sometimes concordance reeks when we individuals are plucked from our niches and planted into fake plastic tree pots. At least we still have our Radiohead. Me personally, i’d choose a Sequoia treehouse to get away from the world…but i can see some of the allure of Mangroves too.
Cool beans!