Dorthe Nors - So Much for That Winter

He’s just like an Indian, that’s what he is, an Indian who enters his teepee after the lost battle to find the Indian in himself. He sharpens his spear, confronts his demons, sings about the night, sticks cords through his chest muscles and hoists himself through pain toward the light. He does it to find the Indian in himself again, and when he’s discovered him, he steps out of the teepee. And his woman is a squaw who’s seen the Indian in him the whole time and, no matter what he does, is able to see the Indian in him, but she also knows that the man she loves is precisely the sort of Indian who, after the lost battle, enters his teepee to find the Indian in himself again, so she doesn’t go anywhere. Where should she go?

Sat out in the sun,

lay down to read but looked chiefly at the sky, full of hoverflies and planes, and I’m not going anywhere. Where should I go?

Scribbled down an inscription: IN GRATITUDE.

Scribbled down an inscription: ALWAYS MISSED

and thought, No doubt it’s just a transition phase,

and then I walked home,

clipped my nails,

and drank my coffee scalding from the pot while I looked at my hand holding the nail clippers, the pen, and the memory of things I have seen and held true,

and it held on, my hand, it’s not letting go.

How could it?

Woke and could tell that it’d be a good day.

Biked to Dragør, which was the spit and image of the village I lived in on the island of Fanø.

Walked the bike straight out to the Sound and looked out toward Sweden, where clouds were gathering, but it didn’t matter, because above me the sky is always blue.

Read, in the scent of saltwater, wet dogs, and children, until the mist reached the Øresund Bridge,

bought a shawl in a dime store

and ate an ice cream cone on the lawn in front of one of the cannons that in 1808 had sent seventy balls into the hull of the Africa, pride of the British fleet, and ’twas on a day like this, with jam in the corners of the mouth and the will to believe that the tide of battle had turned.

Walked along the water,

sat down by the harbor,

gazed at the swans while a father and his little boy raced along the breakwater, on a day with no trapdoors but with swans and the breeze on my face, and there is peace, there is only kindness and good intentions and abundance in the hollyhocks, the half-timbering and the swans, the swans and then all the saltwater below.

Biked homeward and was already freezing in my summer frock by the white church in Dragør.

Biked through the airport tunnel just as a Boeing or something took off, and the pressure and its flight out into the world shook the ground, the bike, and me as I sang, because no one would be able to hear me anyway in all the happiness

of just such a blind and sated Pentecost Copenhagen.

It was the sky from the morning,

the sky and my hand resting on the duvet,

and it was the rain and the writing on the wall, on the shopping list, in the letters

and the walk in the cemetery under white hawthorn, red hawthorn, and me and a squirrel in the willow allée.

Reserved a table at the hotel for me and Dad and Mom, and I’m looking forward to them seeing where I live, and I’ll show Dad the planetarium and Christiansborg Palace, and I’ll show Mom that that house by the Søndermarken streetcar stop where she once lodged for a week as a twenty-year-old, not knowing that one day her children would exist and that her daughter would stand brimming and point, that that house is still standing.

Thought about my dentist while I boiled eggs,

wrote a crucial note,

had an attack of vulnerability from the silence that fights back

and then took a walk on Queen Dagmar’s Boulevard among the girls hopscotching and the boys with their scooters and then me and my insecurity, but the one who writes must dare to stand with her fledglings stuck to her fingers and surrender them in showers of spittle and roses

and keep going, because it’s important

and keep going, because it’s alive

and keep going, because that’s what she believes

and that’s the way the future is,

keep going, because she loves it (I love it)

and keep going when she can’t do anything else (I dare to)

and keep going, because that’s the whole idea.

That’s the whole idea.

Got Mom and Dad from platform 2, Copenhagen Central Station, and they waved the whole way through the passenger tribe.

Let Dad tell everyone on the metro where he was coming from.

Let Mom hold my hand all the way home from Langgade Station.

Expected nothing less and said nothing about my expectations.

Took Valby from the green side, took Frederiksberg with flowers, wood pigeons, ducks, and Dad in the zoo,

and it was the same animals they had in Central Park, I remember, penguins, polar bears, and wolves, and the stench of the primates’ urine also the same, and I sat tailor-fashion like a local bohemian on a knoll with my takeaway and phoned Dad, who was walking about among his trees on the other side of the planet. I can see the Empire State Building from where I’m sitting, I lied. And I can see the transformer tower, he lied, and then we spoke for the rest about how long it had taken my postcard to get there.

Had my picture taken with Dad and the cow with black patches.

Let Mom hold my hand, and I didn’t say a thing, and didn’t cry either.

Walked home through Søndermarken,

made them coffee while they rested their legs,

made notes about that when neither of them was watching, and then

let Dad tell everyone in the restaurant that it was my birthday.

Went home by Magnoliavej after dinner and the birthday business,

the lilacs, the California poppies, and Mom’s fingers in my palm, quietly morsing the message, It’ll all turn out okay, it’ll all turn out okay,

it’ll be okay,

my mother’s fingers morsed, and then I morsed back

Yes it will, yes it will.

I was the Gefion Fountain, that was me it came from, and it flowed out across Central Station, the metro to Valby, and up the stairs to my flat, and the plash that sounded a bit after noon was me letting go in the hallway.

Tried not to drip on the table, even though I was filled with the sort of fluid you find in tear ducts, primordial soups, and amniotic sacs.

Went over the empty flat with a dishtowel.

Donned my running clothes, but was too beat to run and walked slowly with the sight of laburnum like a weight in my chest, and I miss everything, if anyone can understand that.

Fed a house sparrow from my hand and drowned it.

Got a call from Mom: We’re home now, and that was that, and it wasn’t that, it was more the entirety of it all, and everything that was lacking in order for life to proceed,

and then I walked home with my shoelaces untied and muddy.

Was in the shower without turning on the water,

sat slightly sweaty in the dusk,

and it wasn’t dangerous, I reflected about my day as a baroque wetland. It’s just an aspect of the ability to love

and thereby of love itself

and thus a sort of blessing.

Woke up one year older, feeling that this should be seen as a sign,

but it isn’t a sign of anything, other than that a day has passed.

Paid my back taxes,

attended to my mail,

and took a long walk along the usual route through the cemetery to the elephants, and their mighty bodies played with each other in the pool as if they knew full well that their weight could prove fatal, and I stood there a long time, I stood at the side of an old woman who also pondered the elephants’ love lives.