Dorianne Laux: "What’s Broken"; Forza Azzurri!

A conference on the theme of “resistance/resilience” at EFLU.

In between, went to the doc asking for the simplest possible medicine if at all I don’t feel better. He seemed to understand me. No antibiotics unless my tummy launches an act of resistance.

A formal dinner later in the evening where I like the spicy smell of the food — after Scotland where I made myself some bland stuff all these 3 months — but can’t eat much. Still, some mutton biriyani, chicken curry, sambhar, crispy okra and the famous Hyderabad sweet “double ka meetha” (basically, bread pudding, extra thickened).

Didn’t drink the water there for fear of more dramatic tummy. A lot of meet-and-greet all along. My very beloved friends J and J introducing me as a “fantastic writer” and me wanting to hide behind a hibiscus bush freshly rain sprayed.

***

Somewhere through all this meeting and greeting people, I suddenly felt a little blank. A piece gone missing. Probably because I can never do the right thing at the right pace. Well, no. Maybe because I didn’t read enough poetry since last night. So I went on to read this poem below and the missing piece started to stir in its invisible form. Like a voice, a shape, a little china piece broken but anxious to settle in. It felt sad. It felt happy. It still felt broken:

What’s Broken

BY DORIANNE LAUX

The slate black sky. The middle step

of the back porch. And long ago

**

my mother’s necklace, the beads

rolling north and south. Broken

**

the rose stem, water into drops, glass

knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s

**

pot of parsley and mint, white roots

shooting like streamers through the cracks.

**

Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,

the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken

**

little finger on my right hand at birth—

I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t

**

been rent, divided, split? Broken

the days into nights, the night sky

**

into stars, the stars into patterns

I make up as I trace them

**

with a broken-off blade

of grass. Possible, unthinkable,

**

the cricket’s tiny back as I lie

on the lawn in the dark, my heart

**

a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

***

Bah. Better I turn to hero worship. Oh yes, I do that from time to time! You should easily guess who is it this time

Here, then:

The formidable, bling-ed up Mario Balotelli, who else! What a lovely match. What a win. Forza Azzurri! Avanti Italia! On to the finals.