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2409 Jefferson Street
Port Townsend, WA
360-379-1086

Nancy Dahlberg

Heart Lesson

Icicles drip in the sun, then drop

and silently pierce the snow.

Indoors the children bend over scissors,

red paper, their constructions—fresh-cut

heart-shapes personalized with ragged edges—

lopsided presentations on white lace,

confections with designs on a friend,

affection to sweeten the day.

This year again the carpet’s spilled with red,

evidence of the heart’s excess

discarded in trying to get it right.

Now the oldest child shows how to form a heart

more perfectly with half the cutting,

as if at a certain age one knows

what will pass for love needs balance.

It’s all in the fold, she says, and watching

where you start, remembering edges,

not forgetting the center.

Her small hands hold the stiff paper just so,

knowing that a heart given such attention

will open to you doubled        and whole.

At the Poetry Reading

Rising to read, the woman

introduces herself, “I’m a retired surgeon;

mother of six children.” I imagine

the years spent scheduling her days—

hospital calls and after-school activities—

the amazing clutter of her life

and still, the clicking keyboard

late nights writing poems

like the one she reads tonight

about tackling, then beating up,

the flower delivery guy

who passed her by

last Valentine’s Day without roses,

no hard-work reward for her.

Such injustice justified

retaliation and bearing witness

through words. I believed

in the power of this woman;

I wanted to be like her, wanted

to be her. Later, over beers and fries

she confessed, “Everything I said tonight

was fabrication.” Yet I remain

persuaded by the power

of presentation, that truth lies in style.

Anywhere But Here

Fog, like wet wool in the face,

oozes north over Salmon Bay,

blankets the Chittenden Locks—

fresh water, sea water, rising then

draining away. A man from landlocked

Iowa smiles as the warning bell

announces the seaward gate’s parting,

watches the yacht Clarissa disappear

in the mist; and he yearns to be

on that vessel that will sail from Shilshole Bay

through Puget Sound and beyond—

to the Strait of Juan de Fuca,

the Pacific’s deep water. He’d like to be

anywhere but here, visiting his Ballard

in-laws with their lefsa and lutefisk

dinners, gray as this morning’s fog.

He reaches over, hugs his wife,

mutters something I can’t hear,

but I see her face cloud over

before he sails off like the Clarissa

and disappears from our midst.

Band Class

Low notes choke in the flute

the way Robert plays it—strangled

like Jessie’s high notes

when she blows trumpet.

Practice, practice, practice,

the music teacher tells her class,

but she knows the soccer field

is where they want to be, not here

in this band room after hours.

She remembers her own struggles

with the clarinet, moistening its reed

just enough—how sometimes

what she wanted to play

stayed in her head;

even given breath enough,

the melody refused to flow

from her throat, past her lips.

Her students, keyed up now,

are eager to perform.

She taps her baton, smiles

and nods to the young musicians,

and the first notes teeter out

like newborn chicks on wobbly legs.

When You Went Away

The moon waned to no moon;

curtains drawn or not drawn,

the rooms turned gray,

never wholly light,

mostly dark.

Photographs stopped getting older,

nothing burned or needed water.

I came in and went out.

Evening and morning,

everything always the same.

I woke to an old memory of waking once—

no, more than once—

to a house empty and blind dark.

I didn’t move, didn’t dare to.

I never knew until you went away

how much you warmed the air

and gave it color,

how you moved from room to room,

loving back the dark.