The NecklaceAt the worst of the depression, one moment in the office,
suddenly, my necklace shifted,
flowed across some high ribs
and sank down along the top of one breast
as if a creature had got into my shirt,
yet I felt its will-lessness, caress
of matter only, small whipper or
snapper, milk or garter, just
the vertebrae now, as if a stripped
spine had taken its coccyx in its jaw
around my throat -- s equator, and now
stirred on the mortal plates. And these were
the pearls from my mother, as if she slithered
along me to say, Come away from your gloom,
your father, that garden is a grave, come away,
come away -- as if some crumbs of her milquetoast,
aged and polished to a gem hardness,
spoke in oyster Braille on my chest
near my own breast, suckler singing
to suckler, anti-Circe my mother
led me away from that trough with a light
raking, over me, of her wiggly whip -- just one
wobble along me, globe on her axis,
chariot-wheel of morning.
Copyright © 1999 by Sharon Olds. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
