Five After Remedios Varo, by Amy Gordon

De Homo Rodans or Fantastic Animal, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1959

 
The Fantastic Wheel
 
As I was crossing town today, my feet fused into one big wheel. 
It made my journey easier. True, I rumbled on uneven pavement, 
 
but at least I didn’t stumble and now I zip past boys on bicycles delivering 
Instagrams, though I prefer to move at the pace of, let’s say,
 
a croquet ball wobbling through tall grass, for this fantastic wheel 
allows me to catch glimpses of the past: my mother as she walked to school, 
 
warming her hands with roasted chestnuts in her pockets. One of the few
stories of hers that didn’t feature her bully brother. And now I see
 
my father and his brother. They stand in dueling pose, whacking
each other with sticks. Even at the age of ninety, Dad gazed 
 
into the distance and said, I beat him, didn’t I? Meaning, he’d managed
to live longer. And now I see my brother, changing a flat tire
 
that time his back was bad. What made him persist? The fantastic
wheel helps me to see simple moments in the lives
 
of complicated people. Not to dwell in the past, but to keep 
rolling toward a better understanding. Mind you, the present 
 
holds delights. That secret smile inside my grandson’s eyes. 
Don’t let me move too fast. I want to pay attention.
 

Flautist, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1955

 Learning to Play
 
To make audible the tunes 
that rise inside you, lean 
against a rocky crag. 

Absorb melodies embedded 
in earth’s libraries of sand 
and clay. You will need 

a few molten rocks to spark the air, 
a scrim of fine ash to alter 
the view. Then build, note 

by note, story by story, 
a scaffolding. Climb 
toward sky. Love the clouds, 

but also love the grass. 
 

Mimesis, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1960

Practical Magic
 
The floorboards of our boarding school 
grew thin and pocked from the impact of girls
turned stiff and upholstered, ruled, as we were 
by shipwrecked women paid pennies 
to watch over young lives on the cusp 
of making love, not war. Oh there was
 
Miss C who hummed as she prowled the halls,
permed head thrust forward, sniffing
for trouble. Mrs. G, widow of a Russian count, 
or so she said, told stories of spies, and owned
only two brown sweaters. Miss L’s trembling hands 
barely managed a fork. Into my room she came
one night, breathing whiskey, whispering Honey.
 
And what of Miss H, our long-dead founder, 
who took her students to sun-flecked Italy?
Girls should be encouraged to experience
the fullness of life. Come back and haunt us,
Miss H. We need you here.
 
It was late, my radio turned low. And suddenly, 
the doors to my fusty armoire blew open,
delivered me clouds. Cirrus and cumulus
(we had been taught the names of things) 
and I clambered aboard and sailed 
 
out of the school, sailed over meadows, over rows 
of growing things. I didn’t know their names
but I could feel how their stems drank water,
how the tiny hairs on the underside of leaves
protected them. I touched down
 
on a moonlit road and danced with my shadow.
How lovely the world was, and lonely.
I returned to my cell. Vowed 
to become more cello than chair.
 

Magic Flight, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1956

 
I Wanted to Fly
 
I made a pair of wings
cut from the yellow coat 
I wore to church,
but the wings were too heavy. 
They pinched my shoulders.
I gave them to a boy,
then hunkered down in a courtyard
and turned the crank of a hurdy-gurdy,
the only instrument I knew how to play,
to celebrate his lift-off. 
He flapped those wings 
and soared. I didn’t think
to ask why the boy could fly, 
and I could not.

Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1960

What I Carry
 
The head of a man I once knew, 
to be dropped into the nearest bin, 
and a basket of grievances no longer
useful—tempting, also, to discard 
the mask I wear like glasses slung 
about my neck, and also the cloak 
I’ve worn for years, wool woven 
from ancestors’ sheep that grazed 
a dirt-poor hillside. The cowl bunches
around my mouth, makes it hard to speak,
but I have spoken enough for one day.
The sun is out. I will turn my back 
on brick and run to the mossed woods, 
free of mask and cloak.
 
Amy Gordon
 
Amy Gordon taught drama to middle school kids for many years.  Her collection of poems, Leaf Town, won the 2023 Slate Roof chapbook prize. She lives in Western Massachusetts overlooking the Connecticut River.