For when I turned back I didn’t know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.
What You Need for Painting
from a letter by Renoir
DON’T FORGET:
Palette knife
Scraping knife
Essence of turpentine
BRUSHES?
Pointed marten-hair brushes
Flat hog-hair brushes
Indifference to everything except your canvas.
The ability to work like a locomotive.
An iron will.
An Afternoon
As he writes, without looking at the sea,
he feels the tip of his pen begin to tremble.
The tide is going out across the shingle.
But it isn’t that. No,
it’s because at that moment she chooses
to walk into the room without any clothes on.
Drowsy, not even sure where she is
for a moment. She waves the hair from her forehead.
Sits on the toilet with her eyes closed,
head down. Legs sprawled. He sees her
through the doorway. Maybe
she’s remembering what happened that morning.
For after a time, she opens one eye and looks at him.
And sweetly smiles.
Circulation
And all at length are gathered in.
— LOUISE BOGAN
By the time I came around to feeling pain
and woke up, moonlight
flooded the room. My arm lay paralyzed,
propped like an old anchor under
your back. You were in a dream,
you said later, where you’d arrived
early for the dance. But after
a moment’s anxiety you were okay
because it was really a sidewalk
sale, and the shoes you were wearing,
or not wearing, were fine for that.
“Help me,” I said. And tried to hoist
my arm. But it just lay there, aching,
unable to rise on its own. Even after
you said “What is it? What’s wrong?”
it stayed put—deaf, unmoved
by any expression of fear or amazement.
We shouted at it, and grew afraid
when it didn’t answer. “It’s gone to sleep,”
I said, and hearing those words
knew how absurd this was. But
I couldn’t laugh. Somehow,
between the two of us, we managed
to raise it. This can’t be my arm
is what I kept thinking as
we thumped it, squeezed it, and
prodded it back to life. Shook it
until that stinging went away.
We said a few words to each other.
I don’t remember what. Whatever
reassuring things people
who love each other say to each other
given the hour and such odd
circumstance. I do remember
you remarked how it was light
enough in the room that you could see
circles under my eyes.
You said I needed more regular sleep,
and I agreed. Each of us went
to the bathroom, and climbed back in bed
on our respective sides.
Pulled the covers up. “Good night,”
you said, for the second time that night.
And fell asleep. Maybe
into that same dream, or else another.
I lay until daybreak, holding
both arms fast across my chest.
Working my fingers now and then.
While my thoughts kept circling
around and around, but always going back
where they’d started from.
That one inescapable fact: even while
we undertake this trip,
there’s another, far more bizarre,
we still have to make.
The Cobweb
A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that’s happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea
was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I’ll be gone from here.
Balsa Wood
My dad is at the stove in front of a pan with brains
and eggs. But who has any appetite
this morning? I feel flimsy as
balsa wood. Something has just been said.
My mom said it. What was it? Something,
I’ll bet, that bears on money. I’ll do my part
if I don’t eat. Dad turns his back on the stove.
“I’m in a hole. Don’t dig me deeper.”
Light leaks in from the window. Someone’s crying.
The last thing I recall is the smell
of burned brains and eggs. The whole morning
is shoveled into the garbage and mixed
with other things. Sometime later
he and I drive to the dump, ten miles out.
We don’t talk. We throw our bags and cartons
onto a dark mound. Rats screech.
They whistle as they crawl out of rotten sacks
dragging their bellies. We get back in the car
to watch the smoke and fire. The motor’s running.
I smell the airplane glue on my fingers.
He looks at me as I bring my fingers to my nose.
Then looks away again, toward town.
He wants to say something but can’t.
He’s a million miles away. We’re both far away
from there, and still someone’s crying. Even then
I was beginning to understand how it’s possible
to be in one place. And someplace else, too.
The Projectile
FOR HARUKI MURAKAMI
We sipped tea. Politely musing
on possible reasons for the success
of my books in your country. Slipped
into talk of pain and humiliation
you find occurring, and reoccurring,
in my stories. And that element
of sheer chance. How all this translates
in terms of sales.
I looked into a corner of the room.
And for a minute I was 16 again,
careening around in the snow
in a ’50 Dodge sedan with five or six
bozos. Giving the finger
to some other bozos, who yelled and pelted
our car with snowballs, gravel, old
tree branches. We spun away, shouting.
And we were going to leave it at that.
But my window was down three inches.
Only three inches. I hollered out
one last obscenity. And saw this guy
wind up to throw. From this vantage,
now, I imagine I see it coming. See it
speeding through the air while I watch,
like those soldiers in the first part
of the last century watched canisters
of shot fly in their direction
while they stood, unable to move
for the dread fascination of it.
But I didn’t see it. I’d already turned
my head to laugh with my pals.
When something slammed into the side
of my head so hard it
broke my eardrum and fell
in my lap, intact. A ball of packed ice
and snow. The pain was stupendous.
And the humiliation.
It was awful when I began to weep
in front of those tough guys while they
cried, Dumb luck. Freak accident.
A chance in a million!
The guy who threw it, he had to be amazed
and proud of himself while he took
the shouts and backslaps of the others.
He must have wiped his hands on his pants.
And messed around a little more
before going home to supper. He grew up
to have his share of setbacks and got lost
in his life, same as I got lost in mine.
He never gave that afternoon
another thought. And why should he?
So much else to think about always.
Why remember that stupid car sliding
down the road, then turning the corner
and disappearing?
We politely raise our teacups in the room.
A room that for a minute something else entered.
The Mail
On my desk, a picture postcard from my son
in southern France. The Midi,
he calls it. Blue skies. Beautiful houses
loaded with begonias. Nevertheless
he’s going under, needs money fast.
Next to his card, a letter
from my daughter telling me her old man,
the speed-freak, is tearing down
a motorcycle in the living room.
They’re existing on oatmeal,
she and her children. For God’s sake,
she could use some help.
And there’s the letter from my mother
who is sick and losing her mind.
She tells me she won’t be here
much longer. Won’t I help her make
this one last move? Can’t I pay
for her to have a home of her own?
I go outside. Thinking to walk
to the graveyard for some comfort.
But the sky is in turmoil.
The clouds, huge and swollen with darkness,
about to spew open.
It’s then the postman turns into
the drive. His face
is a reptile’s, glistening and working.
His hand goes back—as if to strike!
It’s the mail.
The Autopsy Room
Then I was young and had the strength of ten.
For anything, I thought. Though part of my job
at night was to clean the autopsy room
once the coroner’s work was done. But now
and then they knocked off early, or too late.
For, so help me, they left things out
on their specially built table. A little baby,
still as a stone and snow cold. Another time,
a huge black man with white hair whose chest
had been laid open. All his vital organs
lay in a pan beside his head. The hose
was running, the overhead lights blazed.
And one time there was a leg, a woman’s leg,
on the table. A pale and shapely leg.
I knew it for what it was. I’d seen them before.
Still, it took my breath away.
When I went home at night my wife would say,
“Sugar, it’s going to be all right. We’ll trade
this life in for another.” But it wasn’t
that easy. She’d take my hand between her hands
and hold it tight, while I leaned back on the sofa
and closed my eyes. Thinking of … something.
I don’t know what. But I’d let her bring
my hand to her breast. At which point
I’d open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, or else
the floor. Then my fingers strayed to her leg.
Which was warm and shapely, ready to tremble
and raise slightly, at the slightest touch.
But my mind was unclear and shaky. Nothing
was happening. Everything was happening. Life
was a stone, grinding and sharpening.
Where They’d Lived
Everywhere he went that day he walked
in his own past. Kicked through piles
of memories. Looked through windows
that no longer belonged to him.
Work and poverty and short change.
In those days they’d lived by their wills,
determined to be invincible.
Nothing could stop them. Not
for the longest while.
In the motel room
that night, in the early morning hours,
he opened a curtain. Saw clouds
banked against the moon. He leaned
closer to the glass. Cold air passed
through and put its hand over his heart.
I loved you, he thought.
Loved you well.
Before loving you no longer.
Memory [2]
She lays her hand on his shoulder
at the checkout stand. But he won’t
go with her, and shakes his head.
She insists! He pays. She walks out
with him to his big car, takes one look,
laughs at it. Touches his cheek.
Leaves him with his groceries
in the parking lot. Feeling foolish.
Feeling diminished. Still paying.
The Car
The car with a cracked windshield.
The car that threw a rod.
The car without brakes.
The car with a faulty U-joint.
The car with a hole in its radiator.
The car I picked peaches for.
The car with a cracked block.
The car with no reverse gear.
The car I traded for a bicycle.
The car with steering problems.
The car with generator trouble.
The car with no back seat.
The car with the torn front seat.
The car that burned oil.
The car with rotten hoses.
The car that left the restaurant without paying.
The car with bald tires.
The car with no heater or defroster.
The car with its front end out of alignment.
The car the child threw up in.
The car I threw up in.
The car with the broken water pump.
The car whose timing gear was shot.
The car with a blown head-gasket.
The car I left on the side of the road.
The car that leaked carbon monoxide.
The car with a sticky carburetor.
The car that hit the dog and kept going.
The car with a hole in its muffler.
The car with no muffler.
The car my daughter wrecked.
The car with the twice-rebuilt engine.
The car with corroded battery cables.
The car bought with a bad check.
Car of my sleepless nights.
The car with a stuck thermostat.
The car whose engine caught fire.
The car with no headlights.
The car with a broken fan belt.
The car with wipers that wouldn’t work.
The car I gave away.
The car with transmission trouble.
The car I washed my hands of.
The car I struck with a hammer.
The car with payments that couldn’t be met.
The repossessed car.
The car whose clutch-pin broke.
The car waiting on the back lot.
Car of my dreams.
My car.
Stupid
It’s what the kids nowadays call weed. And it drifts
like clouds from his lips. He hopes no
one
comes along tonight, or calls to ask for help.
Help is what he’s most short on tonight.
A storm thrashes outside. Heavy seas
with gale winds from the west. The table he sits at
is, say, two cubits long and one wide.
The darkness in the room teems with insight.
Could be he’ll write an adventure novel. Or else
a children’s story. A play for two female characters,
one of whom is blind. Cutthroat should be coming
into the river. One thing he’ll do is learn
to tie his own flies. Maybe he should give
more money to each of his surviving
family members. The ones who already expect a little
something in the mail first of each month.
Every time they write they tell him
they’re coming up short. He counts heads on his fingers
and finds they’re all surviving. So what
if he’d rather be remembered in the dreams of strangers?
He raises his eyes to the skylights where rain
hammers on. After a while —
who knows how long?—his eyes ask
that they be closed. And he closes them.
But the rain keeps hammering. Is this a cloudburst?
Should he do something? Secure the house
in some way? Uncle Bo stayed married to Aunt Ruby
for 47 years. Then hanged himself.
He opens his eyes again. Nothing adds up.
It all adds up. How long will this storm go on?
Union Street: San Francisco, Summer 1975
In those days we were going places. But that Sunday
afternoon we were becalmed. Sitting around a table,
drinking and swapping stories. A party that’d been
going on, and off, since Friday a year ago.
Then Guy’s wife was dropped off in front of the apartment
by her boyfriend, and came upstairs.
It’s Guy’s birthday, after all, give or take a day.
They haven’t seen each other for a week,
more or less. She’s all dressed up. He embraces her,
sort of, makes her a drink. Finds a place
for her at the table. Everyone wants to know
how she is, etc. But she ignores them all.
All those alcoholics. Clearly, she’s pissed off