For My Mother, Who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further by Alexander Lazarus Wolff
“Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end there was
a certain sense of order.” —Anne Sexton
What I weave into these sentences is not meant to unveil that which you don’t want others to see, to divulge a family secret or to snipe you for some forgotten failure. I merely hope to collect the fractured memories from the life I had before, smoothing and removing their grit, and polishing them so they shine as does the sea when the sun is setting. I recall, from when I was eight years old, the stained-glass windows of Blessed Sacrament Church. Bored by the priest’s monotonous incantations, I took interest in how those panes could catch the light of late morning and turn them into beams of sapphire, gold, and emerald, colors in stark contrast to the well-worn gray carpet and off-white walls. Like that stained glass, I want to filter the light of my past and make it effulgent, turning my prior pains into prismatic rays that could be of interest to someone and, perhaps, a source of solace for another. Isn’t that the purpose of art?
“This piece was much more successful than "Ennui." Four editors mentioned they liked the piece. But I trashed it because I felt this poem could not stand on its own (as it is not meant to stand on its own— I am including it in an honors thesis). And, of course, this is not even to mention the self-consciousness this piece engenders in me because of its strident, confessional tone.”
Alexander Lazarus Wolff (he/him/his) is a student at the College of William & Mary. His work has been published or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry website, The Citron Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Main Street Rag, Serotonin, and elsewhere. He is a poetry editor for The Plentitudes. You can find him and more of his work on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolffalex108/ on Instagram: @wolffalex108 and at www.alexanderlazaruswolff.com