mario susko

the all

as a child I thought eternity
began whenever I stopped to count
the invisible stars in my room
because I ran out of numbers
trying to outpace the squeaking
of iron springs behind the paper wall.

when I kissed my grandmother's cheek,
her skin smelling of churned butter,
I knew she wasn't dead for I too
could lie in my bed with a wooden cross
in my hands and hold my breath forever.

I believed pregnant women were smugglers,
carrying, after the war, sacks of potatoes
or coal under their dress, and I learned
through fear, having seen a horse drop
out of a horse, I hadn't come from an egg.

there was so much unlearning
later in to be done, about the suitcase
full of maps with shortcuts to life
after life, a tree that could hide
its shadow, and words bring salvation
when ripeness starved its fruit to death.

sleeping in a different bed every night
to outguess random targets practitioners,
I came to see the all as a counted nothing.

this comes from mario susko's rather fabulous eternity on hold, another poem from which you can hear on the march 21st stanza podcast here at about six minutes in.