Big Story / Little Story
— after Kim Hyesoon
The big story is the old dog dying slowly,
half her mouth working tender bits
she is hand fed, strokes or tumor
or both, unsettling her stomach.
The big story, her good days, little one
her bad. Or is her deep sleep one night,
restless the next the little story,
the big story smoke haze at 20,000 feet
giving each day its slight urine tinge.
The world is dying slowly, its people
faster, and only certain calamities
make the news around here anymore.
Big stories, our indifferent littleness.
After uncertain recovery, a heart patient
begins post-surgical therapy to build
her strength for radiation treatment,
the pea-sized tumor in her lungs, little.
Her shadow’s enormity these many years,
my brother and I picking floor crumbs
like ants after a dinner plate was tossed
across a room. What we can shoulder,
a little story made big by repetition.
The old dog sometimes soils herself in sleep.
How little a thing, to bathe her before
morning light. No bigger story than death
but resurrection. Orion window-framed
over the laundry basin, rising again tonight.
LISA HIGGS has published three poetry chapbooks, most recently Earthen Bound (Red Bird). Her poetry has been published widely, and her reviews and interviews can be found at the Poetry Foundation, Kenyon Review Online, Adroit Journal, and Colorado Review.
Read more by Lisa Higgs
Poem in The Maine Review
Poems in Jet Fuel Review
Poems in Split Rock Review