When I open my eyes, there’s the eastern inner
border of my home state,
the hands greenish with creamy granular
phosphorescence, and the hinge of the angle
the lake of my childhood: purple under
thunderheads; chartreuse; silver;
in sunlight the fierce turquoise of
my mother’s eyes. The luminous paint has
glowed all night—how long since it was touched by the
light it holds. Then the furnace goes on,
like a wind in my head, an underground wind.
In my dream, my little son was pesky—
my only dream with harshness toward him in it—
getting in my way when I wanted to work,
and I barked at him, annoyed, and lifted his
wrists over his head, the ends of his radius and
ulna like chicken wing joints between my fingers,
and I steered him down the hall by this human boy handle
and deposited him in his room, my young
son. My first 60 years,
in my sleep I hurried not to be late
for my execution,
but since I walked away from my gorgeous
bully boyfriend, in the dark I wrangle
with people—yet not speaking truth
to power, but acting on annoyance, this time
to a tender one.
How much longer can I live without touch?
It’s a sweet sentence, that at 75
“I’m between boyfriends,”
and I think that in a way I’m like a crone goddess, ish,
the Sun-Kissed Matron in grey braids,
holding my tray out to you, chest-
high, rich with night-dark California raisins.
—Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds teaches workshops at NYU and the Community of Writers in California. This poem will be in Balladz, due out from Knopf in September 2022.
