My Body Rescues Me
When my mind is heavy
as rain clouds, when
I have lost my way
in a paralytic depression,
my legs come to rescue me.
Block after block, mile
after mile, my feet flying
across pavement, my worries
grow light and lighter.
Automatic as a wind-up toy,
my legs carry me away
from my darker self,
sweet and easy as laughter.
When my mind replays disasters,
the death of my daughter,
my marriage gone up in flames,
my eyes come to rescue me.
Cry, they say, cry yourself
empty of sorrow, regret, shame.
Every horror contains
its opposite. Be patient.
Joy lives around the corner.
She is baking a fruit pie
to surprise you.
When my mind cries
Not good enough!
after editors reject my poems,
men that promised forever
disappear like chalk erasures,
my sister declares me dead,
my heart comes to rescue me:
Write poems to please yourself,
dance naked in your room
at night singing hosannas,
rescue an abandoned dog.
What is a wagging tail
welcoming your return
if not silent applause.
Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals, such as The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Georgia Review. In the past she served as the poetry critic for The Virginian-Pilot, poetry editor for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founder of the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry for Light Persists (2006), and the Poetica Publishing Chapbook Contest for The Long Life (2011). Jane Ellen Glasser: Selected Poems(2019), Staying Afloat during a Plague (2021). and Crow Songs (2021) are her recent collections. To learn more about the poet and her work, visit www.janeellenglasser.com.
