Change - Ellen Bass

 

Art by Deborah Koff-Chapin

This is where I yank the old roots

from my chest, like tomatoes

we let grow until December, stalks

thick as saplings.

This is the moment when the ancient fears

race like thoroughbreds, asking for more

and more rein. And, I, the driver,

for some reason they know nothing of

strain to hold them back.

Terror grips me like a virus

and I sweat, fevered,

trying to burn it out.

This feat is so invisible. All you can see

is a woman going about her ordinary day,

drinking tea, taking herself to the movies,

reading in bed. If victorious

I will look exactly the same.

Yet I am hoisting a car from mud ruts

half a century deep. I am hacking

a clearing through the fallen slash

of my heart. Without laser precision,

with only the primitive knife of need, I cut

and splice the circuitry of my brain.

I change.