Lilacs
(for T.R.)
I’m
not sure how long it’ll take,
but
it won’t be pretty,
and
I don’t need your help doing it.
Do
not feel
you
have to wait around
and
watch me die.
There
is no need to cling.
If
you fall in love with another man
and
hop on that train,
I’ll
wave to you from the station.
I’ll
watch your face
pressed
up against the window,
your
features a blur
of
distance and speed.
I’ll
go home and make a margarita,
light
a joint,
slide
into my hammock,
dream
of oysters on the BBQ,
line-dancing
music,
and
all my beautiful lovers.
I
will dream of the past.
And,
if, when I awake
in
late afternoon sun,
I
see your grey eyes, curious, staring,
I
will take your hand,
and
together we can breathe in
lilacs,
the pale-purple kind,
so
improbably fragrant
though
the blossoms last
only
a few brief weeks
in spring.
Over
the phone,
my
mother says, I love you extravagantly.
I stand on my tiptoes, darling
girl, and kiss your forehead.
Maybe
she is wearing that pale blue pants suit,
the
majesty of her still-chestnut hair swept
into
a French twist.
Maybe
she is studying her slim hands,
manicured
every week.
My
lover Stella is pretending to read a book,
pretending
she’s not listening.
I
am cleaning engine oil out from
underneath
my fingernails.
Mom
asks, Is that running water?
Are you doing the dishes?
I
say, Mmmmm.
She
asks as she always does,
Have you met any nice men
in your office?
I
want to say, I work in a garage. With
men.
A
garage full of men.
I
say, Nobody interesting so far.
I
feel, rather than hear, her sigh.
She
says, Ellen’s nephew lives near you.
Now
I sigh. Ellen’s nephew is 5’ 6”, skinny as a stick.
I’m 5’ 11” and stocky, Mom.
I
already know she will say,
Athletic, not stocky, and with
such a pretty face. And
that is a consolation, dear.
A
consolation.
Stella
mouths, Athletic, and leaves me, once
again,
to
this conversation.
Mom
wonders if I got the birthday present she sent.
Wants
me to tell her she’s a good mother.
The
pink box is on the floor
with
its pink tissue paper,
and
curled lavender ribbon.
Inside,
another frilly nightgown,
this
year it’s the color of water.
She’s
sent one every year
for
the decade since I left home.
They
reside in my bottom drawer,
each
still folded with the card.
I imagine slipping the silk over my head,
stepping
out under the bone-white moon,
into
the furious night,
in
the company of other shadows.
The nightgown’s lovely, I say, and thanks,
but I really don’t need so many.
You never know, she says,
her
voice husky with alcohol and hope.
When
her scent sweetens Tasmanian air,
the
black fur bristles on his body,
and
his muscles begin to hum.
He
follows the odor through night scrub,
through
moon-shadow of gum and yellow wattle
past
where the cockatoo sleeps,
head
tucked under wing.
The
female devil is young, but when trapped,
fights
with shrill coughs and sneezes
as
if she were allergic to the stink
of
his temper and his needle teeth.
She
bites to cut skin, connects, then
cowers
against the curved wall of her hollow log.
His
snapping jaws grip her scruff;
he
takes her from behind,
mechanical
thrust,
both
of them in a trance and growling.
When
he is finished,
seeds
implanted,
she
lunges and hisses.
With
a wound on his hindquarters,
he
snarls a warning,
marks
the log, marks the earth,
limps
out under wheeling stars.
Noon.
Even
in our room
with
a swamp cooler going, it’s stifling.
From
our second story window,
I
look down at the space between our hotel
and
the building across the way,
with
its solid shade.
The
three are sitting on the ground,
leaning
against the wall opposite,
feet
straight out in front of them.
The
man in puffy pants and shirt.
On
his lap, an embroidered bag.
To
his right, a small boy
dressed
like the man,
topped
off with a cloth cap.
To
the man’s left, a large brown bear
wearing
a wide leather collar.
The
man opens his bag
and
pulls out a canteen.
He
drinks. The boy drinks.
The
bear drinks.
Then
the man unknots a white bandana
and
gives a portion of food to the boy,
a
portion to the bear,
and
eats some himself.
Last,
two guavas each,
which
they chew and swallow,
skin
and seeds.
They
all lean their heads back.
Eyes
closed, they seem to be dozing.
Later,
groggy after my own nap,
I
return to the window
and
the space outside is empty.
The
man, the boy, and the bear
have
disappeared,
the
after-image
evanescent
as a dream.
Once,
when he was doing research in Lichtenstein,
the
veranda doors rattled
and
Carl opened them to a quartet
of
drunken associates:
a
Bally shoe heir,
the
king’s interior minister,
the
representative of 400 shadow companies,
and
Carl’s own physician
in
a three thousand dollar suit.
He
barred their entry
but
they could see my red nightgown,
undisciplined
tumble of hair.
It’s
true we slept beside each other
although
he never kissed my mouth or touched my body
the
way he did with those brief affairs –
the
20 year old boys
he
always yearned for.
He
came back to bed, sighed,
and
said maybe this would stop the gossip
for
a while.
He
told me about
working
with a Central American hill tribe.
The
villagers were frightened by him -- a giant
with
blue eyes and hair so blond and fine
it
was almost invisible in certain light --
and
they thought he was the devil.
No
one would give him information
and
he had to abandon the study.
I
loved that he would confess to me
how
he grew to dislike those people
who,
when he passed by,
pulled
in their babies
and
even the piglets
the
women routinely nursed
sitting
in the sunshine.
He
reached for a pomegranate in a nearby bowl.
We
broke it open and ate the fruit,
the
tiny red hearts
both tart and sweet.
Rafaella Del Bourgo’s writing has appeared in many journals including Puerto Del Sol, Rattle, Oberon, Nimrod, and The Bitter Oleander. She has won numerous awards such as the League of Minnesota Poets Prize, the Grandmother Earth Poetry Award, the Paumonak Poetry Award, the Northern Colorado Writers First Prize for Poetry, and the Mudfish Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. She recently won the 2025 Allen Ginsberg Award.
Her first full length poetry collection I Am Not Kissing You was published by Small Poetry Press. Her chapbook Inexplicable Business: Poems Domestic and Wild was published by Finishing Line Press. She won the Terry J. Cox Award for her full-length poetry manuscript, A Tune Both Familiar and Strange, released August 2025, which is available from Regal House Publishing. She lives in Berkeley with her husband.
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