SusanButler

My field is covered in stones. The earth is hard here

and flowers will not bloom.

It was only me and him, that wordless summer. We tasted the grapes from the arbors,

watched the heavy globes ripening sungolden.

In the evening, my father and I ate sunwarmed tomatoes right from the garden

held like apples in our hands while his father's peonies swung heavy with bees.

We'd been digging stones from the field all day

and clearing brush from the woods to burn under the bright August sky.

At night, I burned marshmallows fat as the moon while he burned pages of his novels.

Ashes on fire

twirled in the dark, turned into fireflies, into stars,

some of them falling

back to his earth.

It was a different world then, in a summer silent like the burning sun,

and I fell asleep in the grass feeling the earth turn under the stars.

I’d like to know whose eyes they have, to know

how it would feel

for my tongue to say without thought:

This is my brother

This is my sister

how it would feel

for a holiday to come and invite them in,

how it would feel

for my heart to know

a comfort there.

Where the earth is hard and flowers will not bloom,

I have many stones to tend.

But two of my graves are too small, 

too small to hold as vast a thing as death, to hold the terrible space

left behind.

All the other holes in my earth may be larger but not greater,

and though I still call their names

none of them can comfort me here.

So here I remain,

left, the last, alone.

©Susan Butler

For my brother and sister with love.

La lune d’août rêve de fleurs lourdes parfumées et d’oiseaux vivement colorés,

de plages exotiques et de jardins d’émeraude éclairés par sa lumière.

Elle rêve de papillons de nuit ayant les ailes éphémères bien baignées au clair de lune.

C’est une symphonie de fragilité, de la vie et ce qui repose en dessous, son contraire.

La lune d’octobre rêve de chauves-souris légères et de trous noirs du temps pervers,

de la chute des feuilles teintées de rouge mordant mais qui de nuit ont l’air de  fantômes argentés.

Elle rêve de nos mondes distincts qui meurent et se réincarnent de la terre fertile au clair de lune.

C’est une symphonie de ruine, de la vie et ce qui pourrait la surpasser, nos envies hantées.

Dans le noir j’ai rencontré un bel homme rusé qui ne rêvait jamais, jamais.

Le cœur vide dans sa puissance meurtrière n’était figé qu’à la colère.

C’est le cauchemar qui rôde dehors, la grande faucheuse qui nous noierait au clair de lune.

C'est voleur de l’esprit de l’esprit à l’âme rancunière, aussi froid et mortel qu’une nuit glaciaire.

Je rêve de ce qui n’a jamais été et je rêve de ce qui ne sera jamais.

Je rêve qu’il m’aimait comme il m’a dit qu’il m’aimait, et je rêve de comment ce serait d’être aimée.    

Ma chère lune qui rêve les beaux rêves la nuit, je rêve tout autant que toi,

moi, une femme qui dans mes rêves se noie.

©Susan Butler

You left many ghosts

in my care.

You left the ghost of

your voice, your

rage the thunder in my ears

that shakes me unexpectedly in the dark.

Your ghost comes out of my mouth

when I speak of myself.

Freak, you say, Failure;

those names like hexes you spoke at me,

always threatening something more.

You left many marks

engraved in my skin, still etched

on what is left of me, on what I haven’t yet peeled away

to erase your touch, your every touch, your marks

the ghosts of fangs

and venom.

You left ghosts of your hands,

bruised the throat of my hope

where you strangled it, wrung it

dry;

your handprints remain

where you twisted my goals into grievances.

You left one of your ghosts

in the corner,

in the space where I always hid from you

until the day you found me.

This ghost stands there still, still and hot,

all eyes,

the way you stood over me like a disobeyed god.

Your boot prints appear and disappear, laden ghosts

crushing down my bones

to unimportant grime beneath your weight, your weight

somehow less heavy

than the fear tightly packed inside my chest.

You left many ghosts

in my care.

But these ghosts of you

are only half of what you were,

lesser,

only your echoes, your aftermath, the nightmare

of you,

not you,

and this is my relief.

Ghosts of You first published in The Horror Zine January 2020

©Susan Butler

I have wrapped myself in cinnamon and cedar.

I have filled my body with honey drunk by moonlight.

My feet are oiled, henna stained with lotus blossoms, my hands swarm with bees

who whisper, sah, the sound of the wind chasing the sand.

I have eaten gold and opened the eye while borne on the backs of blue scarabs

who summon me, Star of Egypt.

Recounting the days when I was bought and sold,

I throw your lies back to you from the scale, one by one by one,

until my ears ring with the song of all women before and after.

Floating like myrrh, I stretch my open bones to the bright stars,

to the immortals,

and now I am sure you can never touch me.

Knowing what I know now

I would never let you enslave me

as the price for beautiful days

not even to become the one I am.

Though you tore out my tongue and stole my fingers, yours was a secret I would not keep.

 Dignity first published in Cauldron Anthology Issue X Cult Winter 2019

 ©Susan Butler

Notes:

Sah, the ancient Egyptian word for mummy, means dignity, nobility.

The Egyptians called the circumpolar stars the immortals; they were always visible, always watching.

The Star of Egypt is Sirius.

I

Dawn begins on my skin, sweet anticipation of light.

The earth turns, the light proceeds.  Sun, a shiver of mourning.

Sorrow for the loss of peaceful night, my bones weigh heavy.

"Dawn always begins in the bones."  Hymn to Ra, The Egyptian Book of the Dead

II

We laugh over childhood adventures.  Our treasure was living free,

just living, unconcerned with life, unaware of mortality.

Remembering when, by his grave, we were immortals.

III

The hard weight of my thoughts dissolves, now light shines, life clear as fresh rain;

each leaf and bud enunciates, a gleam, each stone in high relief.

This day of despair washed clean, there comes my son walking home.

Three Sijo first published in Lynx XVIII: 1  February 2003

Thank you to the late Jane Reichhold, with love and gratitude.

©Susan Butler 

From a distant life,

from a thousand miles away,

I recall the innocence of your hands.

I remember the way you held onto me as if to keep from falling away,

the way you reached out for me as if to save yourself from drowning.

This is all I have saved of an innocence when I did not know

your feral malice would sear me into cinders of bone, one day

your fingers would stretch and ache to choke like tendrils of seaweed.

In silence I was nearly tangible

but as I spoke, you alone became immuring stone.

I recall the sharp rage of your hands; born

to tear the voice from my throat, to bury me, snuff me

still, so I,

I dissipate into air, ash, autumn sky.

        life slips into the air - blades of yellow leaves rain through slips of perilous sun

        someone sleeps on the ground - something slips from my hands 

        breath escapes, never caught again - you did this

Soon only one of us will drown in thin air and still

love is not war no matter how bloody you make it.

Into Thin Air first published in Ink in Thirds Issue 9, February 2017

©Susan Butler

wet black ink

crows haunt the blood forest

before

a bone moon

©Susan Butler

in the night, in my bed,    she chews my legs down to bloody raw meat

stark bones between feet and thighs

until she shrieks at me    what I do not know

as her jaws stretch and clack,

     but it is pain.

Skin of shadow blue, veins showing through, gaunt and gut-wrenching,    beautiful,

he lounges at my door, thumbing thin the cover of a leather journal in thin hands;

he watches the hours of night and silence    slip into early morning,

he watches the dawn come until he fades with the stillness     to rays of pink and autumn,

and he whispers to me only,

     “Sorrow.”

My dead want vengeance for the ways I’ve made them suffer.

My Dead first published in The Horror Zine January 2020

©Susan Butler