Linda MacLean

Lyceum, my heart
I was thinking about you yesterday
As I was making a mask
I was thinking
(How to say this without being defeatist)
But
What if this is the end of us?
(boom, I’ve thought that before)
But what if
(Well)
What if people think you’re no more than a luxury item?
(And not just because you’re beautiful)
What if they say those words that make your heart sink
Like
In the grand scheme of things
When push comes to shove
You’re not exactly
Not exactly saving lives
Not exactly
Essential
What if they say those words
And then turn away
Turn away to face their screens and watch great stories well-told somewhere else because
(Well)
Because they need to
They need to feel better
(We need to feel better)
And (as well)
Maybe we need to not feel catastrophe in its own time
Because it’s beyond us
Like shock
Like the way extreme shock can numb your wounded legs and let you run
Until it’s safe to feel the pain (and then, well, oooyah)
Maybe the very last thing we need right now is to know how we feel
Maybe what we really need is to know that it’s going to end
And when?
When?
Because without the end we’re never safe
Never safe to see the wound for what it is
And cry the ALMIGHTY CRY we can’t cry yet
But it’s in there
That thing that monitors your everyday ‘I’m doing fine, thank you’
(I know this)
That thing that cradles your fear
Helps you sleep
Pours you some wine
Lets you laugh
Yes laugh
While it lurks
(You know it can’t stay down there forever)
(You know, sure as the whole day is light and dark together)
(You know it’s lurking)
Now and again you’ll feel its head rise to catch you off-guard
At the news of a kindness
Or a sadness spoken out loud by someone who has lost too much
(Cry their heart)
Too much to bury it for the safe day
Their safe day was yesterday
Or it will find you ironing a piece of cloth you found in a drawer perhaps
Buried there for one reason
Or another
Never thinking that one day you would put it to good use
(You bought it because you wanted to be beautiful)
Remember
You bought it because every sunbather in Mombasa was draped in something like it
But it never looked quite right against your skin
Never looked quite as bright against a grey sky
Isn’t that why you buried it?
Isn’t it?
Your head will tilt as if to ask a question of it
The way your head tilts when it suspects an answer is almost within its grasp
Yes
There it is
And your knees buckle
Unbidden
You fall into midnight
The first end time
As you walk out of a hotel in Nairobi with the last receipt of the year
Or ever
And it explodes behind you
(boom)
And
(BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM)
Your body is transformed into a creature that stands perfectly still until the danger has passed
Time
(well time)
Does not pass
It divides itself into more and ever more slivers of itself
As your slow-motion brain stands silent witness to your body
Rivetted by tremor
Rooted
Without understanding
Under a crumbling wall
Is this the end of us?
I was making masks yesterday
Because I wanted to protect people from harm
My son, in particular,
His colleagues in their general practise
And I ran out of quilting material
One hundred percent cotton as recommended
Doubled
Breathable
Strong enough to stop the killer that might take them from us
(Do not cry, heart, not yet)
But I had run out of fabric and they needed more masks
So I remembered the drawer where cotton might be
For one reason or another
Forgotten
And there it was
Pole kwa yaliyo kufika Mungu ndiye atakaye kuongoza
The motto printed across the bottom of the cloth
I used to know what that meant
I knew what it meant when I bought it
Yes
I remember asking because I didn’t want to buy something I didn’t understand
Yes
There it is
Sympathies for what befell you. God will be your guide
(Cry now, then)
(Cry old hard tears)
See the wound for what it is
There is a man across the street from the exploded hotel in Nairobi
A Greek as it happens
I can see he’s shouting
But I can’t hear
I can’t move
I must look as fixed as I feel
And then he runs at me
Yes runs
I can see with my widened eyes that he’s going to run right into me
And he’s a heavy Greek no question
I understand at some level that there’s danger in that
But he’s here now
And he pushes me
He’s big, he’s heavy, he’s strong
And I fall hard onto the pavement
I’m sure I was hurt
But I don’t remember any pain
I do remember looking around to see the wall behind me land on the shadow of myself
And for the first time
I see the smile and apology on his face
See him explain with big gestures
I still can’t hear anything
He has remarkably square hands
He wants me to move
He wants to make sure I won’t be harmed by debris or
(BOOOOOOOM)
A second explosion
(smaller but somehow more frightening)
I jump up
I jump
And I run
I have no idea where I am going
But I am not staying here
Not staying there
The Greek is faster than I am
He gets ahead of me and paces his walk to mine
He slows
I slow
He asks me what’s in my bag that I was guarding so tightly
I say
Wine, I’m going to a New Year’s party
I don’t want to turn up empty-handed, do I?
Ha
We laugh
Unbelievably
We laugh
I had forgotten that we laughed
Until now
As it bubbles up from beneath the hurt
We will laugh
This is how we survive
But we will cry before we laugh again
Held in the safety of your embrace.
Tags: Letters