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

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?

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