Jennifer Franklin

A FIRE IN HER BRAIN

Whatever spark or gift I possess has been transmitted to Lucia, and it has kindled a fire in her brain.
—James Joyce on Lucia

You search for the best doctors, try to curb her pain—
still believe there is something you can do.
You blame yourself for the fire in her brain.

Two decades on, her illness is impossible to explain.
Most of what you learn, you already knew, still
you search for the best doctors, try to curb her pain.

As the years drag on, only the few who love you remain.
The rest—too uncomfortable to help see you through.
You blame yourself for the fire in her brain.

You salvage what’s left of a life you can’t maintain,
admonish yourself for what you must pursue.
You search for the best doctors, try to curb her pain.

You cannot neglect the work that keeps you sane—
try to learn what might help her—what’s false, what’s true.
You blame yourself for the fire in her brain.

If you had not listened to their selfish campaign
there would be nothing to repent, nothing to undo.
You search for the best doctors, try to curb her pain.
You will always blame yourself for the fire in her brain.

Duplex Beginning with a Line from James Joyce about His Daughter, Lucia

She must not be left alone in terror. 
The world spins sharp and inscrutable.

My daughter’s world spins sharp and inscrutable
while doctors, in their hubris, supply answers.

The doctors only pretend to have answers.
Each failed solution is a slow death.

Constant caretaking will cause my early death.
Since her diagnosis, I am a stranger to myself.

I am a stranger to myself, defined by her diagnosis.
It is impossible to make up for lost time.

The hours of lost time taunt me but, unlike Joyce,
I cannot just close the door and write.

All I want is time to read and write.
But she must not be left alone in terror.

 

Author: Jennifer Franklin

Jennifer Franklin is the author of three poetry collections, including If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Books, 2023), finalist for the Paterson Prize and the Julie Suk Award. Her work has been commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum, and published in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, The Nation, and Poetry Society of America’s “Poetry in Motion.” She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a NYFA/City Artist Corps Grant, the Jon Tribble Editor’s Fellowship, and a Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation Award in Literature. She is cofounder and cohost of the online reading series “Words Like Blades” which pairs mentors and their mentees. Her new manuscript, A FIRE IN HER BRAIN, is a series of epistolary poems to Virginia Woolf, Lucia Joyce, and Sylvia Plath. She has been teaching manuscript revision workshops for over a decade and she also teaches in Manhattanville’s MFA program, Poets House, The Frost Place, and 24 Pearl Street.

 

Plume: Issue #149 January 2024