Four Poems by Mary Jo Bang
Mary Jo Bang is the author of eight books of poems, including A Doll for Throwing, The Last Two Seconds, The Bride of E, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has translated Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio. She’s been the recipient of a Hodder Fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the American Academy of Berlin. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Her book of poems A Film in Which I Play Everyone is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2023. Her translation of poems by Matthias Göritz, Colonies of Paradise, is forthcoming from TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press in October 2022.
“Immaculate”
I didn’t imagine it would be like this:
day a thread that turns into ink at night
and sinks in an ocean of inverted brain waves.
Someday, I’ll no longer be
having thoughts, which is fine with me.
No more failure, no more humiliations
of the flesh. Last night I dreamed
I lost my shoes but got on a bus.
When I was too far gone to go back, I got off.
The driver drove away. That was that, I said
to the tree standing next to me, I guess
I’m lost. Then, a child arrived
dressed as a dove. With a feathered cape
that made it part child, part bird.
That one was crying and stopping,
then crying again. Every time it cried,
a halo of baby faces framed the light,
right where my lost mind was staring at air.
Immaculate is intended to be read alongside The Immaculate Conception by El Greco, ca. 1607–1613.
“Cosmic Madonna”
I’m available in laminate, plywood
or plastic. Either will last
through a nuclear winter. That’s not to say
there won’t be difficult days,
there will be. They keep coming around
like a regifted Christmas.
Out the window, the street is clear—
no people, no cars, then here comes a clock
dragging a minute through the mud,
ruining the illusion of standstill and closure.
The last of my seven sorrows is the boy
who disappeared like a pin
that rolled under a floorboard, unreachable,
never to be seen again.
I know that’s nothing compared to a war
where the dead lie looking up,
their eyes aimed forever at heaven.
I was once a bronze statue. Someone said
they saw me weeping. Tell me, am I
the only one who doubts that a bronze icon
can cry? Or wonders why the men
in a painting of the magi are wearing tunics
and tights? Was that the fashion year zero
in the West Bank? Surely not.
One life lacks the depth and extravagance
of a country in crisis, yet
here we are, crying for their lives and ours.
His life and mine. That time and this
and all of the times when death happened
through spiteful and vain acts of self-interest.
Cosmic Madonna is intended to be read alongside Cosmic Madonna by Salvador Dalí, 1958.
“Mary, Star of the Sea”
In the Nativity set Holy Christmas
Crochet Pattern (Virgin Mary, Joseph,
& Jesus), Joseph has a beard
and a turned-down mustache, which is,
quite possibly, why when I see it
my mind goes straight to Che Guevara.
There’s a downloadable tutorial so
no one need worry they won’t be able
to make me be just what they want
me to be. I’ve never been better
at being than when I live inside
someone’s head. It’s not only lovely but
it is also temperature controlled
the same way San Diego is. I always
wanted to be an actress. I told everyone
I would be. I always thought I would
love living in the city of nameless angels.
My father told me, the sea is a heaven
where everyone goes when they leave you.
I believed. And here I am. Waiting
to be made into something better
than a toy or a coloring book, something
that will stand up to water. The thin
tissue full of tears the world wastes—
when it can’t be bothered to better itself.
Mary, Star of the Sea is intended to be read alongside Raphael Madonna-$6.99, 1985, by Andy Warhol.
“Mother of God”
In the script, I was twelve
to fourteen, depending on the fantasy.
Lolita as Lo and Behold and God
was born. God having first created me
according to a bicycle form of believing—
where regardless of what can be seen,
a wheel in the mind goes round
and round as it watches the thinking
id become a force of destruction.
The boat, it’s said, was filled with light.
A pretty idea, if somewhat impractical.
Mary, Virgin of the Navigators, the men
hellbent on spreading the news that
imperialism would be good for the rich
and, BTW, would keep the clergy fed.
A wife at home in a brocade gown.
I’m wearing one as I serve
as the mindless humming of those at sea.
Mother of God is intended to be read alongside The Virgin of the Navigators by Alejo Fernández, ca. 1531–1536.