A Private Mythology                          
                         Mary Carroll-Hackett
 

 

 

where sometimes I spend weeks on the edge of tears, saltwater sweet and caught

in the unseen relentless undertow, the slide away of office floors beneath my big girl shoes, or 

sidewalks that tug and tug, urging me toward alleys, into brambles and hedgerows, toward dark 

and desperate clumps of trees that just a month ago seemed so much like home, so full of light 

and open to the blue bones of the sky. 

 

This is the story I might not tell you.

And this is why. 

 

This book has pages and pages of the saddest things, 

torn-edged tales I carry folded inside my sleeves, inscribed like love inside my favorite rings,

those set with large stones distracting away from questions as they flash and catch the sun. 

Sometimes, I pull them from my pockets, fold them into little cranes, until you're so enchanted, 

no asking remains, and I'm safe, in the myth grief tells. 

 

This is the story of leavings. This is the invisible line the sea makes, then erases, the sand below 

your feet rippling, pull and play, the story of water birds whose wings brush and retreat, follow 

like shadow, giving, then taking away.

 

                                                                                                                                                 after the painting by Jonathan K. Rice