The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 10/10/07 Bonus

"The Split"

She'd start fires under the bed.
I'd put them out.

She'd take the broom stick and rape all the little girls.
I'd pull them aside, stroke their cheeks, and comfort them.
—How they would cry.

Brit would fight the German Soldiers.
She'd crouch by the banister waiting for them
when I was too scared.

And sometimes, sometimes she would push me farther into the back woods
than I wanted to go.
But I was glad she did.

She was mean and I liked it.

She'd take off her clothes and dance in front of the mirror
and she’d say things and she’d swear.

She'd laugh at the crucifix, turn him upside down and watch him hang.
And she’d unhinge that piece of metal cloth between his legs
and run when she heard somebody coming
leaving me.

Only twice have I heard her laugh since then.

Once, lying on my back in a yellow field,
I heard something that sounded like me in the back of my head
but it was Brit,

and just now, making love with you, it's hard to tell you
but I heard her laugh.

II.

It began as a fear.
There was something, not me, in the room.

And translated into a dumbfounding
forgetfulness

that stopped me on the street
puzzling

over what year it was, what month.

I began to watch my feet carefully.
Nevertheless, I suffered
accidents.

The bread knife sliced through my thumb
repeatedly

the water glass shattered on the kitchen floor
and in its breaking there was a low laugh.

Looking up, I saw no one

but felt the old cat stretch inside me
feigning indifference.

Marie, I'd hear in a crowd, Marie
the air so thick with ghosts it was hard
breathing.

One afternoon, the trucks were humming like vacuum cleaners
in the rain.

It was impossibly lonely,
no one but me there:

I called out Brit, the city is burning,
Brit, the soldiers are coming

and she laughed so sudden and loud I turned
and saw her for one second

all insolent grace, pretending
she wasn't loving me.

—Marie Howe

Sounds like a war orphan, probably in an orphanage, with trauma induced multiple personalities. :(

The speaker's mention of the "games" she played with the alternate personality seem to me like fantasy role-play in which the abuse the alter is "playfully" re-enacting makes reference to the abuses the speaker suffered in childhood. And I think we're supposed to understand that the speaker recognizes and comprehends what the alter is, and why "she" behaves the way she does.

What I don't see, is a clear reference to the events which helped the speaker figure out she has MPD or that "Brit" is a manifestation of that condition. "Only twice have I heard her laugh since then." Since when? Since...long-term therapy? Since long-term therapy for MPD, plus meds, plus so-called "integration"? Since another event that made the speaker realize what "Brit" is, and represents?

That's my only hang-up about this otherwise brilliant poem—why leave out that information?