Category: Anne Marie Macari

by Anne Marie Macari

Remember being dressed in

the fur of earth, our loping

limbs? Once I dreamed

of you falling, and I fell

after you, but there was nothing

to land on and I woke up.

And then I wondered if you

were still there, locked

in the dream, still falling,

but without me to find you.

We can’t count on waking,

and if we did wake, opening our

eyes, our backs against

the tough grass, and if we lifted

our hands, what strange

animals would they be?

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

by Anne Marie Macari

Leaving last slants of light.

Inside with the bats. Then sorry

when the light is gone. Sorry

to what stayed behind.

I call without a voice to the walls—

openings I can’t see and keep

entering: sorry, sorry

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

by Anne Marie Macari

Alone, I left the visible world.

How hard my eyes pressed

but still no sight. Some things

abhor light and I almost

understand them growing

in their slime. I stayed

in darkness, stayed till

the winding sheet began to come

undone around me, all of me

loosening, separating, even

the pieces of my own spine

unhooked, and bits of me

floating off with the river—arm

ear  teeth—the cave a throat

swallowing me. Later, it spit me up,

thrust me out like a boat—

my body returning to me—light

that picked my pieces up

and made of me

what it could.

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

by Anne Marie Macari

Carrying little, wearing a weak

headlamp, a mile in, stumbling

and wet, the cave walls

like my own insides and I an animal

painted there. Darkness

filling in my cartoon lines, my blank self.

I am inside a hole

in the earth, with pots

of ochre and ash. My offerings—

your hair, the print of my hand.

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

by Anne Marie Macari

Covalanas Cave, Spain

Once I was an animal, like you, red deer,

bright as arterial blood, with

sure feet. The painter pressed you

to life with pointer and thumb.

Your one eye and pert ears.

Now you leap inside me, over

and over from my cliff

of trapped air. Back legs tucked.

Red, red, the female creatures grazing inside—

green and in motion, the earth below.

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

by Anne Marie Macari

Cougnac Cave, France

Many corners turned beneath

pencil-thin stalactites, thousands

like upside down candles,

wet flames dripping.

Beyond my mind’s

violence, there,

an ibex painted

in calcite-milk

with wall-ooze for

a shaggy coat. Will it always

be buried? Memory

stumbling into mineral stillness,

crystallized, almost lucid, or carried—

a forgotten animal across

my shoulders, radiant

and awash in lactation, made

with hand, mouth, spit.

Dear friend, I remember

being painted

in coal and blood,

and the long gallery

where all souls parade.

from Red DeerFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2015
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.