Eric Steineger

Sylvia, Becoming

It’s February. Telephone wires ice.
The sound of a passing automobile
makes squirrels wince, if one could
see them. The leaves, if any remain,
blend with snow and sidewalk.
Too few feet on their way to flats
near Primrose Hill. Then coal. Then
attend to kids’ needs before your mind.
How do you cope? With pots of stew
from intolerable treks to the market?
No telephone either. Just letters and
the Muse who startles in the parlor
on Tuesday. While Frieda and Nicholas
sleep, Ted is wandering, being a poet.
Candlelight the worst time, that silence,
eye in the pallor of the kitchen
and for what? No one understands
the attempts, the memory of Him,
pernicious uniform and ok with it—
Other voices compete for attention.
To pretend nothing is wrong is a symptom
like keeping appearances or being
the woman of the house while the dishes
of the mind pile and never get rinsed.
You live here at 23 Fitzroy Road
in the former house of W.B. Yeats
in ’63 and there are rooms in need
of paint; the laundry must be done;
someone has the croup, too.
The city is coughing in the cold.
Everyone is coughing, Sylvia,
even the yew tree in its grey-green,
arms to the sky, a metaphor for
nothing, maybe, or maybe the body
learns to decide: health or illness
before the field tilts in a direction.
There will be a nurse; there will be
tape and there will be legions;
there will be solace someday,
many will keep a journal.  

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Eric Steineger is the Senior Poetry Editor of The Citron Review. His work has been featured in Waxwing, The Los Angeles Review, Rattle: The Poets Respond, Tinderbox and other journals. His chapbook, From a Lisbon Rooftop, explores themes from Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet and is available at Plan B Press. He lives in Asheville with his wife and daughter.