Climbing You

 I want to understand the steep thing
 that climbs ladders in your throat.
 I can't make sense of you.
 Everywhere I look you're there--
 a vast landmark, a volcano
 poking its head through the clouds,
 Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.

 I climb into your eyes, looking.
 The pupils are black painted stage flats.
 They can be pulled down like window shades.
 I switch on a light in your iris.
 Your brain ticks like a bomb.

 In your offhand, mocking way
 you've invited me into your chest.
 Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
 I'm supposed to go in with a torch
 or maybe hot water bottles
 & defrost it by hand
 as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
 It will shudder & sigh
 (the icebox to the insomniac).

 Oh there's nothing like love between us.
 You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
 If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
 but you'll wait years maybe
 for the next doomed expedition

Commentary

Searching for poems by Erica on the net, landed up reading this lovely poem.

Liked the following lines in particular:

  The pupils are black painted stage flats.
  They can be pulled down like window shades.
  I switch on a light in your iris.

— arvind

Martin adds

Intriguing poem - I loved the imagery, particularly in the brilliant last verse. It reminded me a bit of Atwood’s [Poem #1093]

        I would like to be the air
        that inhabits you for a moment
        only. I would like to be that unnoticed
        & that necessary.

- there’s the same sense of ‘selfless’ attachment, and the wryly humorous tone promising more, perhaps, than the other is willing to receive.

— Martin

Biography

Born March 26, 1942, New York to Seymour Mann a musician, and Eda Mirsky, a painter.

Interesting to note that her first publication party, in 1971, was held in a fruit and vegetable market. She read selections from her poetry book “Fruits & Vegetables” perched on a crate of grapefruits and oranges!