washed my hands. Smoked a couple more cigarettes
while I listened to the beat of the little
music that was left. Things had quieted way down,
though the sea was still running. Wind gave
the house a last shake when I rose
and took three steps, turned, took three more steps, turned.
Then I went to bed and slept wonderfully,
as always. My God, what a life!
But I thought I should explain, leave a note anyhow,
about this mess in the living room
and what went on here last night. Just in case
my lights went out, and I keeled over.
Yes, there was a party here last night.
And the radio’s still on. Okay.
But if I die today, I die happy—thinking
of my sweetheart, and of that last popcorn.
After Rainy Days
After rainy days and the same serious doubts —
strange to walk past the golf course,
sun overhead, men putting, or teeing, whatever
they do on those green links. To the river that flows
past the clubhouse. Expensive houses on either side
of the river, a dog barking at this kid
who revs his motorcycle. To see a man fighting
a large salmon in the water just below
the footbridge. Where a couple of joggers have stopped
to watch. Never in my life have I seen anything
like this! Stay with him, I think, breaking
into a run. For Christ’s sake, man, hold on!
Interview
Talking about myself all day
brought back
something I thought over and
done with. What I’d felt
for Maryann—Anna, she calls
herself now—all those years.
I went to draw a glass of water.
Stood at the window for a time.
When I came back
we passed easily to the next thing.
Went on with my life. But
that memory entering like a spike.
Blood
We were five at the craps table
not counting the croupier
and his assistant. The man
next to me had the dice
cupped in his hand.
He blew on his fingers, said
Come on, baby! And leaned
over the table to throw.
At that moment, bright blood rushed
from his nose, spattering
the green felt cloth. He dropped
the dice. Stepped back amazed.
And then terrified as blood
ran down his shirt. God,
what’s happening to me?
he cried. Took hold of my arm.
I heard Death’s engines turning.
But I was young at the time,
and drunk, and wanted to play.
I didn’t have to listen.
So I walked away. Didn’t turn back, ever,
or find this in my head, until today.
Tomorrow
Cigarette smoke hanging on
in the living room. The ship’s lights
out on the water, dimming. The stars
burning holes in the sky. Becoming ash, yes.
But it’s all right, they’re supposed to do that.
Those lights we call stars.
Burn for a time and then die.
Me hell-bent. Wishing
it were tomorrow already.
I remember my mother, God love her,
saying, Don’t wish for tomorrow.
You’re wishing your life away.
Nevertheless, I wish
for tomorrow. In all its finery.
I want sleep to come and go, smoothly.
Like passing out of the door of one car
into another. And then to wake up!
Find tomorrow in my bedroom.
I’m more tired now than I can say.
My bowl is empty. But it’s my bowl, you see,
and I love it.
Grief
Woke up early this morning and from my bed
looked far across the Strait to see
a small boat moving through the choppy water,
a single running light on. Remembered
my friend who used to shout
his dead wife’s name from hilltops
around Perugia. Who set a plate
for her at his simple table long after
she was gone. And opened the windows
so she could have fresh air. Such display
I found embarrassing. So did his other
friends. I couldn’t see it.
Not until this morning.
Harley’s Swans
I’m trying again. A man has to begin
over and over—to try to think and feel
only in a very limited field, the house
on the street, the man at the corner drug store.
— SHERWOOD ANDERSON, FROM A LETTER
Anderson, I thought of you when I loitered
in front of the drug store this afternoon.
Held onto my hat in the wind and looked down
the street for my boyhood. Remembered my dad
taking me to get haircuts —
that rack of antlers mounted on a wall
next to the calendar picture of a rainbow
trout leaping clear of the water
with a hook in its jaw. My mother.
How she went with me to pick out
school clothes. That part embarrassing
because I needed to shop in men’s wear
for man-sized pants and shirts.
Nobody, then, who could love me,
the fattest kid on the block, except my parents.
So I quit looking and went inside.
Had a Coke at the soda fountain
where I gave some thought to betrayal.
How that part always came easy.
It was what came after that was hard.
I didn’t think about you anymore, Anderson.
You’d come and gone in an instant.
But I remembered, there at the fountain,
Harley’s swans. How they got there
I don’t know. But one morning he was taking
his school bus along a country road
when he came across 21 of them just down
from Canada. Out on this pond
in a farmer’s field. He brought his school bus
to a stop, and then he and his grade-schoolers
just looked at them for a while and felt good.
I finished the Coke and drove home.
It was almost dark now. The house
quiet and empty. The way
I always thought I wanted it to be.
The wind blew hard all day.
Blew everything away, or nearly.
But still this feeling of shame and loss.
Even though the wind ought to lay now
and the moon come out soon, if this is
anything like the other nights.
I’m here in the house. And I want to try again.
You, of all people, Anderson, can understand.
VI
Elk Camp
Everyone else sleeping when I step
to the door of our tent. Overhead,
stars brighter than stars ever were
in my life. And farther away.
The November moon driving
a few dark clouds over the valley.
The Olympic Range beyond.
I believed I could smell the snow that was coming.
Our horses feeding inside
the little rope corral we’d thrown up.
From the side of the hill the sound
of spring water. Our spring water.
Wind passing in the tops of the fir trees.
I’d never smelled a forest before
that
night, either. Remembered reading how
Henry Hudson and his sailors smelled
the forests of the New World
from miles out at sea. And then the next thought —
I could gladly live the rest of my life
and never pick up another book.
I looked at my hands in the moonlight
and understood there wasn’t a man,
woman, or child I could lift a finger
for that night. I turned back and lay
down then in my sleeping bag.
But my eyes wouldn’t close.
The next day I found cougar scat
and elk droppings. But though I rode
a horse all over that country,
up and down hills, through clouds
and along old logging roads,
I never saw an elk. Which was
fine by me. Still, I was ready.
Lost to everyone, a rifle strapped
to my shoulder. I think maybe
I could have killed one.
Would have shot at one, anyway.
Aimed just where I’d been told —
behind the shoulder at the heart
and lungs. “They might run,
but they won’t run far.
Look at it this way,” my friend said.
“How far would you run with a piece
of lead in your heart?” That depends,
my friend. That depends. But that day
I could have pulled the trigger
on anything. Or not.
Nothing mattered anymore
except getting back to camp
before dark. Wonderful
to live this way! Where nothing
mattered more than anything else.
I saw myself through and through.
And I understood something, too,
as my life flew back to me there in the woods.
And then we packed out. Where the first
thing I did was take a hot bath.
And then reach for this book.
Grow cold and unrelenting once more.
Heartless. Every nerve alert.
Ready to kill, or not.
The Windows of the
Summer Vacation Houses
They withheld judgment, looking down at us
silently, in the rain, in our little boat —
as three lines went into the dark water
for salmon. I’m talking of the Hood Canal
in March, when the rain won’t let up.
Which was fine by me. I was happy
to be on the water, trying out
new gear. I heard of the death,
by drowning, of a man I didn’t know.
And the death in the woods of another,
hit by a snag. They don’t call them
widow-makers for nothing.
Hunting stories of bear,
elk, deer, cougar—taken in and out
of season. More hunting stories.
Women, this time. And this time
I could join in. It used to be girls.
Girls of 15, 16, 17, 18—and we
the same age. Now it was women. And married
women at that. No longer girls. Women.
Somebody or other’s wife. The mayor
of this town, for instance. His wife.
Taken. The deputy sheriff’s wife, the same.
But he’s an asshole, anyway.
Even a brother’s wife. It’s not anything
to be proud of, but somebody had to go
and do his homework for him. We caught
two small ones, and talked a lot, and laughed.
But as we turned in to the landing
a light went on in one of those houses
where nobody was supposed to be.
Smoke drifted up from the chimney
of this place we’d looked at as empty.
And suddenly, like that—I remembered Maryann.
When we were both young.
The rare coin of those mint days!
It was there and gone
by the time we hooked the boat to the trailer.
But it was something to recall.
It turned dark as I watched the figure
move to stand at the window and look
down. And I knew then those things that happened
so long ago must have happened, but not
to us. No, I don’t think people could go on living
if they had lived those things. It couldn’t
have been us.
The people I’m talking about—I’m sure
I must have read about somewhere.
They were not the main characters, no,
as I’d thought at first and for a long
while after. But some others you
sympathized with, even loved, and cried for —
just before they were taken away
to be hanged, or put somewhere.
We drove off without looking back
at the houses. Last night
I cleaned fish in the kitchen.
This morning it was still dark
when I made coffee. And found blood
on the porcelain sides of the sink.
More blood on the counter. A trail
of it. Drops of blood on the bottom
of the refrigerator where the fish
lay wrapped and gutted.
Everywhere this blood. Mingling with thoughts
in my mind of the time we’d had —
that dear young wife, and I.
Memory [I]
Cutting the stems from a quart
basket of strawberries—the first
this spring—looking forward to how
I would eat them tonight, when I was
alone, for a treat (Tess being away),
I remembered I forgot to pass along
a message to her when we talked:
somebody whose name I forget
called to say Susan Powell’s
grandmother had died, suddenly.
Went on working with the strawberries.
But remembered, too, driving back
from the store. A little girl
on roller skates being pulled along
the road by this big friendly-
looking dog. I waved to her.
She waved back. And called out
sharply to her dog, who kept
trying to nose around
in the sweet ditch grass.
It’s nearly dark outside now.
Strawberries are chilling.
A little later on, when I eat them,
I’ll be reminded again—in no particular
order—of Tess, the little girl, a dog,
roller skates, memory, death, etc.
Away
I had forgotten about the quail that live
on the hillside over behind Art and Marilyn’s
place. I opened up the house, made a fire,
and afterwards slept like a dead man.
The next morning there were quail in the drive
and in the bushes outside the front window.
I talked to you on the phone.
Tried to joke. Don’t worry
about me, I said, I have the quail
for company. Well, they took flight
when I opened the door. A week later
and they still haven’t come back. When I look
at the silent telephone I think of quail.
When I think of the quail and how they
went away, I remember talking to you that morning
and how the receiver lay in my hand. My heart —
the blurred things it was doing at the time.
Music
Franz Liszt eloped with Countess Marie d’Agoult,
who wrote novels. Polite society washed its hands
of him, and his novelist-countess-whore.
Liszt gave her three children, and
music.
Then went off with Princess Wittgenstein.
Cosima, Liszt’s daughter, married
the conductor, Hans von Bülow.
But Richard Wagner stole her. Took her away
to Bayreuth. Where Liszt showed up one morning.
Long white hair flouncing.
Shaking his fist. Music. Music!
Everybody grew more famous.
Plus
“Lately I’ve been eating a lot of pork.
Plus, I eat too many eggs and things,”
this guy said to me in the doc’s office.
“I pour on the salt. I drink twenty cups
of coffee every day. I smoke.
I’m having trouble with my breathing.”
Then lowered his eyes.
“Plus, I don’t always clear off the table
when I’m through eating. I forget.
I just get up and walk away.
Goodbye until the next time, brother.
Mister, what do you think’s happening to me?”
He was describing my own symptoms to a T.
I said, “What do you think’s happening?
You’re losing your marbles. And then
you’re going to die. Or vice versa.
What about sweets? Are you partial
to cinnamon rolls and ice cream?”
“Plus, I crave all that,” he said.
By this time we were at a place called Friendly’s.
We looked at menus and went on talking.
Dinner music played from a radio
in the kitchen. It was our song, see.
It was our table.
All Her Life
I lay down for a nap. But every time I closed my eyes,
mares’ tails passed slowly over the Strait
toward Canada. And the waves. They rolled up on the beach
and then back again. You know I don’t dream.
But last night I dreamt we were watching
a burial at sea. At first I was astonished.
And then filled with regret. But you
touched my arm and said, “No, it’s all right.
She was very old, and he’d loved her all her life.”
The Hat
Walking around on our first day
in Mexico City, we come to a sidewalk café
on Reforma Avenue where a man in a hat
sits drinking a beer.