Margaret Bashaar

XXX. CONCERNING THE LINKING TOGETHER OF THE SUPREME TRINITY AMONG THE VIRTUES;
A BRIEF EXHORTATION SUMMARIZING ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID AT LENGTH IN THIS BOOK

I think sometimes I can recall the very moment
I was pulled from the mud, the suck of it.
My fingers uncurled as the air hit them and they
have been flexing ever since. I was all kneeling,
my dear. I was all thankfulness. And when I felt
the sun at the back of my neck my head
tilted up and it just kept going.

I have come to this table, this house, with my body
as empty as I can scrape it. I know I have run
widdershins 'round you, that I have swallowed
the sun like a raw egg, but I have more blood in me
than I ever realized. I have walked through room
after room - I have known how this story ends
since I placed my foot on the first rung.

So, let us love, since our heart is made for nothing else.
Let us place our fingertips on the door frame.
Let us be always one foot and then the other.
Let us untangle these lines we have drawn.
Let us press our mouths to the earth and learn
how to breathe her. Let us watch the ceiling
crash down next to us and be still, be still.

Quote from St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Margaret Bashaar is the author of two chapbooks; Letters From Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press, 2011) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt, 2009). Her poetry has also appeared in or is forthcoming from journals such as Caketrain, New South, RHINO, Thrush, and Copper Nickel, among other. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits Hyacinth Girl Press and collects antique typewriters, always hoping to find one that's haunted.