Claire Scott – 2024 Pangaea Prize Winner

ANOTHER FUTURE

Another future disappears from the future
suspended in superposition
blinking in and out
until the cloud of probabilities
collapses into tea and toast
in the pale morning light
not dawn in Machu Picchu
the silence of seven thousand feet
not standing before David
stunned by perfection
not even pancakes or poached eggs
which I would definitely prefer
to weak tea and dry toast
unlived lives left behind
like filings on the floor
both dead and alive
until we dare to disturb
the dreamed-up cat.

TIGER DREAM

Last night, sharing a quiet dinner of seared salmon and scalloped
potatoes, we talked, my husband and I, about what we each would do
if the other died first. An elegant bottle of Stag’s Leap Cabernet, linen
napkins, crystal glasses and tapered silver candles graced our table.

Black stripes on orange fur
skulking at midnight
but tigers don’t live in
this tidy neighborhood
near San Francisco
only in zoos where
they are safely locked in cages
& children point & pretend they are afraid

our front door doesn’t shut properly
I try again
the lock doesn’t hold
the tiger is in the house
prowling from room to room
not snarling or threatening
but massive, with a strong musky odor
my legs are shaking like cedar branches

in a high wind hurricane
a desperate help locked in my mouth
I manage to push him out
feeling his lush fur under my hand
I call animal control
a sleepy voice says
there are tigers everywhere
nothing we can do

I hear a low growl
the tiger is slinking
around the garden, belly low
the white patches on his face
catch the street lamp’s light
he looks like a warrior or a deity
one might worship
I pull the drapes shut.

HEART SURGERY

He, his future written by the sound waves
of an echocardiogram, the dye in
an angiogram, a thoracic surgeon
up all night with a fevered child
her hands shaking with caffeine
an exhausted nurse who mixed up
medications after downing a fistful of Valium                 
the monitor that wasn’t beeping
when his pulse dropped below forty
maintenance skipped this year
to avoid a bleeding bottom line
he, lying in an ICU bed
balanced on the edge of brimstone
may the butterfly not flap its wings
and cause a hurricane in Albania
or a bed to fall into an abyss
let him return to his room on the sixth floor
with a functioning monitor and an alert nurse
let his generous heart heal.

LEANING

We lean on our stories the way
we lean on our canes

for a sense of stability,
to feel solid ground beneath our feet

who would we be without our stories
that tell us who we are

               daughter of an alcoholic
               mother of a disabled child

are we living on light from dead stars
the present glued to the past

like black and white photos of people in fedoras
and feathered boas staring from a family album

stories stitched to us like shadows
stuck to our soles like chewing gum

staying past their appointed season
smothering possibility

could we let stories go like helium balloons
watching them float colorfully away

like a flock of Starlings
would we dare live new ones

while leaning on our CVS canes
and letting our lives flow?

MOLTING AT EIGHTY

Did you know
some caterpillars
have tiny wing buds
buried in their bodies

               Retinoids, resurfacing,
               chemical peel & costly creams
               but still wrinkles & creases
               still weary eyelids & wattle neck

So why not molt right now
let withered skin slip away
grow a glistening new self             
& let wings unfurl

PROLONGED GRIEF DISORDER

               The persistent grief is disabling
               and affects everyday functioning…
                              —DSM 5

Ding! ding!
it has been exactly one year
time’s up
get over it
why are you still stuck, when others move on
after merely six months
don’t you know people are sick of you
ding! ding!
tired of your depression and tedious stories
just because you were married for fifty years
and he insisted on smoke-swirled cigarettes
and you begged him to stop, but hell no
just because you now fly solo and forget to eat
and drink too much and the cat disappeared
and you spend hours staring at old photos of the two
of you climbing Kilimanjaro, sipping rosé in Provence,
hiking in Patagonia, kayaking in Utah
just because your eyes are like sunken caverns
the size of Mammoth Cave
and you check out the half pack of Marlboros
at least twice a day
who cares
ding! ding!
get over it
say the dreary psychiatrists
slumped in leather chairs
who know nothing of time peeled back
who know nothing of love

WALKING SLOWLY

Walking slowly from opposite directions
we meet in the middle
hands touching, hesitating
you with aortic valve stenosis

an any-minute stroke or heart attack
says the doctor, looking down at your Echo
me taking notes at cardiologists,
radiologists, nephrologists, thoracic surgeons

tracking blood pressure, medications, directions
to 365 Hawthorne, to 47 Ninth, to 5800 Hollis
swallowing handfuls of Ativan
prescribed for you

words waffle, off the mark, straining, missing
why aren’t words like numbers, always meaning the same thing
no one confuses three with thirty or thinks on Thursdays
seven minus two might just equal four

you imagining oblivion, missing your
granddaughter’s graduation, your grandson’s
soccer game, you a bodiless cluster of cells
floating in space or perhaps reincarnated as a snail

with no memory, sliming in the garden
me wearing someone else’s glasses
the world a blur
an empty space each time I turn

an undented pillow, an empty Niners cup
staring at each other over an abyss
silted with fear
strangers after forty years

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