In Down Spiral so many things seem to merge in ways the rational mind can’t explain. The speaker feels an inner fog, a kind of loosening of identity while her dog hopes she will remember who she is and what they do. Then her friend, a singer, seems to associate song with sight, her eye being where her songs are kept. The speaker too must deal with the nature of vision—not only physical, but inner vision, as all these elements swirl together and land with the catbird who mistook a window for the world. This whole downward spiral is about how we see, what we see, and how we face those limitations. It is interesting that animals enter this poem as well as Millikin’s poem, as if these creatures carry some of the deep knowing we can’t put into words.
Linda Aldrich has published three collections of poetry. The most recent is Ballast (Deerbrook Editions, 2021). She was awarded the 2023 Maine Literary Award in poetry (short works). Linda lives in Portland.
Betsy Sholl, MAJ poetry editor.
Down Spiral
Tightly curled fiddleheads
inside embryonic sacs. Primordial.
Frightening. The winter ice went out quietly
during the night, the lake
an industry of cold waves. I’ve forced myself
to walk here with my dog to dissolve
the fog containing me
too many days now. He stands in the frigid water,
shivering,
a stick in his mouth,
hoping I will remember who I am and
what it is we do.
A worn-out feeling, the fatigue
of trying. I had a friend named Sarah
with a beautiful voice,
who lost one of her eyes
and stopped singing. Can you tell which one?
I saw that nothing came out
of the painted eye, a trompe l’oeil
that would never open. It was my singing eye
they took, the place I kept my songs.
I didn’t understand. It could have been
worse, the doctor said, leaving a wake
of stitches around my own eye,
bird tracks in the mud of a sinking face.
Caught it early and you look good for your age,
and I want to say
looking good is not as important
as the energy to keep looking, but what
would be the point? I still had my eye,
and I am worse. Arriving home,
my dog nudges a catbird lying on the porch.
She hit the glass hard and huddles, wings
tucked, head trembling. Nothing
to be done. I’m so sorry my window was not
a world you could fly into.
Image at top: Nora Tryon, Flying Blind, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 16 x 20 in., 2022.