Lachrymals

A U G U S T 2 0 0 0

by David Wagoner

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Some Roman women saved their tears in them.
     They held flat narrow-necked heart-shaped delicate phials
          Below their eyelids against each cheek in turn
And caught their tears. No one could shed enough
     In a single spasm to fill that tiny hollow,
          So the women stoppered them with glass teardrops
And waited. In the meanwhile, some wore them
     Like pendants to have that smooth translucent glass
          (The colors of changing light on the hills)
Nearby all day and all night: none could be certain
     When grief or pain or a sudden abundance
          Of sorrow might come welling into their eyes
Again. When they were full to the brim,
     Some women carried them as charms
          Of remembrance through their lives
And into their tombs, and some would pour them out
     Into quiet streams or onto the bare earth
          And walk away, and some would drink them.

David Wagoner edits Poetry Northwest for the University of Washington. His Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems was published last year.