Marie Howe

Annunciation

Marie Howe | January 2023 (Vol. XXXVI, No. 1)
Even if I don't see it again — nor ever feel it
I know it is — and that if once it hailed me
it ever does—

And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as toward a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,

as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn't — I was blinded like that — and swam
in what shone at me

only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I'd die
from being loved like that.
~ Marie Howe, "Annunciation" in THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME

The Gate

Marie Howe | May 2021 (Vol. XXXIV, No. 5)

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man
but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,
rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

~ Marie Howe from "The Gate" in WHAT THE LIVING DO

As soon as I finish this sentence

Marie Howe | February 2020 (Vol. XXXIII, No. 2)
Why do I flee from you? My days and nights pour through me like complaints and become a story I forgot to tell. Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.
~ from THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME by Marie Howe
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