Liz Gallagher’s The Wrong Miracle

 
   
Spring the Life Fandango
Liz Gallagher
 
I want something and there are twinges in my heart.
My heart twinges so badly that I fear the act of dropping
 
down dead before I get what I want. How is that for
momentum or for a god that has the sauciest way of telling
 
me that I have pushed the boat out too far, I have let
the boat land with a splash and a hoot and I am left in mid
 
ocean without a paddle – the paddle they had warned me
about, the paddle that takes on a life of its own and even beats
  
me over the head in my dreams to make me wake
up in the middle of the night with a bunch of hair stuck in my
  
mouth and my cat licking the back of my hand, frantically
reaching a high meter of lickability that says the big gong is
  
going to gong and tell me Time’s Up. I’d hoped to never want
something as badly as I want this – all the karma and jinxing
  
in the world could take it from me with one loose crack
of the whip. I could be sent marching the long way home
  
without the thing I want badly tucked up in my inside
pocket near my heart, no, on my heart, which now has stopped
  
twanging and is doing a la-la-la beat. It is not about wanting
to hold your hand nor about shaking all over, it’s about seeing
 
a tiny dream, like a foamy insole for a favourite winter
boot (a size too big), become something I can lay
myself on and spring, spring, spring the life fandango.
 
 
 
from The Wrong Miracle (Salt Publishing, 2009).
  
Read more about Liz and The Wrong Miracle here.
  
Visit Liz’s blog.