Two Poems by Brigit Truex

Two Poems by Brigit Truex

Bengali Man Lives in House Made of People

            Weekly World News, March 2006

Bengali Man by Brigit Truex

The mockery of the papers, as if this was

something fantastical, difficult to believe—

of course we live in homes made of people,

with beams of long bone, smooth muscle

firm underfoot. Layered with sentences

that spackle the walls. Consonants, jutting

from the framework, harden with time.

Digits unlock, yielding to the shape

of another’s hand. Uncurtained

vitreous eyes have seen it all.

In our houses, rooms murmur when we leave,

sigh, swallow light from precisely angled

corners so nothing is visible when the moon

has turned its back.  You have to listen carefully

to catch them, to discern the particular

sound, although you think you feel fingers

brush your skin and mistake that breath

for your own.

            “Explorers in India find something almost unheard of: a new language”

                        The Independent, 7 Oct 2010

A Word for It by Brigit Truex

They might have named it

For its shape, different on the tongue,

forming their own sound – dougrey –

for the way it burned, a distant ember

without flame, a lantern in the same place

suspended above the peaks.

How I wonder what you are,

lighting the transit of ala,

bowl of milky light that empties,

refills itself again and again.

No matter that our words

don’t match. Each counts the dawns,

knowing the green bud will unfold soon

under the same hot maynay,

whatever the sound for it.

How I wonder what you are

that first divided us, an a for an m. Was it

inflection or a river that marked the separation?

Speak Aka, say it in Koro. These wind-scoured

mountains make no distinction.

We are the Other.

Each fingers the soil, watches mooyoo

fall gently on upturned faces.

How I wonder what you are.

Author’s Bio: 

Brigit Truex has lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California for the past dozen years. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Atlanta Review, Aurorean, Canary, and Yellow Medicine Review. Anthologies include I Was Indian, Broken Circles and Fog and Woodsmoke, among others. Her collection, A Counterpane Without, is published by Rattlesnake Press, and her latest book, Strong As Silk (Lummox Press) is due out in early 2012.

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