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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

LEARNING TO READ

presented by

Doreen Lenora Fitzgerald

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M.A. English

degree in

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MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity lndltutlon
empire-o:

 

LEARNING TO READ

BY

Doreen Lenora Fitzgerald

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1993

ABSTRACT
LEARNING TO READ
by

Doreen Lenora Fitzgerald

These poems relate to the author's experience of human con-
nections: dislocations: and survival. The author uses open
form: autobiographical detail: and conversational language.
Through the discriminating use of detail: patterns: and
sound: the aim is to distill essences from the personal
that can be significant to others. Most of the poems have a
narrative element: because the author is interested in the
stories humans make and remake as they explain the world
and self to themselves and others. The process of associa-
tion is also of interest: how the word is invested with im-
ages from one's own experience; how poetry uses association
to redefine words and experience; and: how the processes of
writing or reading poetry itself is an experience that

alters the individual.

Copyright by
DOREEN LENORA F ITZGERALD
1993

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Appreciation is due to all the faculty with whom I have
interacted during this project: in particular: to William
Whallon and Anita Skeen for their encouragement: and espe-
cially to Diane Wakoski: poet-in-residence and university
distinguished professor: who generously contributed her

time and valuable criticism.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1944..................................................l
Down Home.............................................2
1947..................................................5
Defining Matter.......................................6
Entrepreneur..........................................7
Teeth.................................................9
Elementary Music.....................................10
The Man Fishes: The Woman Waits......................12
Spain................................................l4
Ready or Not.........................................15
Speed................................................16
The Foragers.........................................18
Sisters..............................................20
Oh: That David.......................................21
Morning Tic..........................................22
Now You See Her: Now You Don't.......................23
Looking for Dad......................................24
July.................................................25
Guarding the Radishes and Beans......................26
Learning to Read.....................................27
Linc and Bernie......................................30
Projection...........................................31
Connections..........................................32
Bouquets.............................................33
From the Far Side....................................34

VOWSCOOOOOCOOOOO0.......0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOO.35

EatS.0..OOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.000.000.0000.0.00.00.00.0000037

Composure............................................38
Bean Blossom Bluegrass...............................39
Simplicity 1976......................................40
Feature Shot.........................................41

FilleIOOOCCCOOOO00.00.0000...0.00.00...0.0.0.0000000042

ii

Cake.................................................43
Birds................................................44
Change...............................................45
Liberation...........................................46
A Gold Star Mother: Schooled.........................47
Jack + Judy..........................................49
The City of Angels Accomodates Simplicity............50
Cincinnati Blue......................................52
Titantic Lessons.....................................54
The Cutting Room.....................................55
Last Rites for Dad at Summer's End...................56
What's New?..........................................58
Wintering Over at Spinach Creek......................60
Cornered in Town on the Brink of Spring..............62
Mother Marries at Seventy-Three......................63
Sister Mole..........................................65
Food Groups..........................................66
Planning Ahead.......................................67
A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bike.........70
New Real Estate......................................7l
Primary Color........................................74

iii

1944

Uncle Kenneth came home
with sandals and dragons.
Daddy was smiling:

Mother cried.

The robes with dragons
fit the children

like old tears.

Down Home

Uncle Narm played the fiddle

in his overalls: until one night:

he walked to Swannanoa

on the tracks: and someone

knocked him on the head:

taking his two dollars and ten cents:
leaving him for dead:

but he didn't die.

He has a mule that smokes cigars.

Latt Mac lives on the side

of a mountain and never looks

when he drives up and down.

He has a rattlesnake

stuffed for fun and a black snake

alive for catching mice.

He keeps a black bear skinned on the wall
and the grinding stones from old mills.
Aunt Annie works at the new mill:

where they make blankets: not flour.

Great Uncle Robert tamed the bees
and built a pool for the finicky trout;

the water cooled the springhouse too.

When he moved to Nebo: he took the bees:
but not the trout; it's flat in Nebo:

real hot in the summer. One summer:

when he was dying there: we drove down home
to say goodbye: with a case of Vernors
Ginger Ale: because that's what he liked:

and they don't have Vernors in North Carolina.

W: the barns say-

Aunt Margaret chewed: but Grandma took snuff:
until they gave her a hospital bed.

She'd never been to a place like that:
where they take all your clothes

and your snuff: and they had to keep her
a long time before they decided

to let her go.

Then someone gave her back her dress:

a plum-colored dress

with a lace collar and her best pin:

and they stuffed her so she wouldn't look
shrunk and painted her face:

and someone put flowers in her hands:

but she was still dead.

Mattie never painted her face

and always asked what I wanted for lunch:

ate all my egg white: gave me her yolk:
keeping the secret to herself.
The_flind_in_thg_flillggs she read out loud.
Her egg money slept on a cupboard shelf:
where she kept and dried the orange peel:
liking the tang of its western smell.

She could peel the skin off an apple

into one long curl.

1947

In the undeveloped fields of Fairview Street:
we fought the second war:

crawling through the summer grass:

hiding in gnarled clumps of sumac:

surely poison: rising suddenly to shoot.

It wasn't tame: that war beyond the bungalows.
We died abundantly and well.

Animating weapons

with our tongues: we rose and fell:

or after someone's sneak attack:

hotly denying death:

we fought along the diplomatic front.
Sometimes we broke for lunch:

or called a truce: when some insistent mother
raised her voice. Sometimes the war

was called because of rain:

or couldn't start: held off by a discussion
of what's fair--who played

the German last: whose turn

to be the Jap. It was a game the grownups

knew by heart: as we would too.

Defining Matter

GENUINE LEATHER: the wallet said:
stamped in gold

between the coin purse

and the identification blank.

I was only seven:

and thought quite hard

about the creature

who'd lost its hide

to cover my paltry sum.

Picturing a tiny pig:

small and valued for its skin:

I thought there ought to be a law:
against the slaughter

of genuines.

Laws: I knew: keep people straight.
But when I learned to drive:

I swerved

to miss a genuine in the road

and hit a tree instead.

Entrepreneur

Christopher Columbus Wheeler:
everyone called him C.C.:

handed out silver dollars

like he owned Mt. Mitchell:

but he just sold melons

over in Asheville: when he was old.
In lumbering days: when land

was cheap: he'd traded his

for a strong ox team:

muscle needed for hauling logs.

When Yancey County needed phones:

he planted poles and strung the wire
across the mountain:

into the gap.

When folks paid up in hens and pigs
that winter there was lots of meat.
Then he bought the widow's cabbages:
because they were so green and fine:
the whole field:

and the table groaned all winter

under sauerkraut to eat.

Book-learning was Great-grandma's bet:

but she sliced

the cabbage and kept the store:
while he took up selling
buggies as the first car

rolled off the assembly line.

He was a big man: standing in his tent
among the pyramids of fruit

that must be sold

before it gets too soft.

When he reached in his pocket:

he'd look surprised

to find two silver dollars there

just waiting for our open hands.

He was prince of the market:

king of the Christmas orange.

Teeth

Wanda keeps hers

on the mantle:

because they don't fit.
Grandmother's leer
from the glass.

Lou doesn't have any:

he works with his hands.

10

Elementary Music

WW

Until we learned this fourth grade song:
I thought the difference only sat
between the legs and on the chest.

They added lips: the lungs: the throat:
beyond appearance of the body parts.

The song had parts: and we were told

to sing the part that fit the sex.

Our voices rose in unison: until the chorus
came around with its quaint permission

for boys to make a puckered kind

of whistling face; for girls:

a strict imperative to sing. Our notes

went 'Tra-la-la-la—la:" a dainty line

of dainty skips and smiles.

I'd never taken to the word must: preferred
can: and after school: defiantly did

both parts. Inside the school: I whistled
to myself. Soon: I resolved to climb trees

forever: higher than my brother:

11

and wore skinned knees like a twin badge:

proving something I didn't know.

In the song: it's Grandma Grunt who cuts
the human voice in two neat halves.
Disgruntled: I wondered who she was:
quite certain there was no such rule

for singing in my grandma's house.

I couldn't see how it foreshadowed
things to come:

dish soap and soft hands:

the absence of water stains on glass:
doors you must not open for yourself.
Complete instructions are enclosed:
preventing problems later on.

Problems: of course: are not without interest:

much like climbing down from trees.

Later: I always sang out loud: in my car:
avoiding the tremulous 'Tra-la-la:'

as I drove across the U.S.A.

and the midcentury blues. I warbled my way
through all the trouble I caused:
thinking: at least I made things happen:
and I still whistle whenever I want:

often in the dark.

12

The Man Fishes: the Woman Waits

An old man: reduced to fishing for life:
magnified by fishing in the stream:
finishing his time with a bad heart:

goes often to the bank for trout.

His woman: keeper of a well-swept house:
goes too and waits there by the road:

so someone can be called: in case

he dies: to pull him out.

She sits in a well-kept Pontiac:

piecing a quilt: patterning remainders
of her past--curtains: nightgowns:

aprons: pants and other quilts.

He's casting into his favorite pool:
deep behind a tangle of trees:
mostly fallen cedar: two birch:

limbs swept down by the spring melt.

She keeps her stitches even and small:
matching triangle edges to squares:
alternating light and dark. His lure:
flashing: scatters light across the dash.

Leaving the car: she quietly shuts the door

13

and walks toward the bridge. Looking:
she says: to see if the berries are ripe:

looking to see if he's still there.

She did this every sunny day

until she died: and he forgot to fish.

14

Spain

Red as the blood of bulls:

dust rising

on the Mediterranean coast:
staccato heel on the bare floor:
framed by a mantle

of black lace:

horned rose pricking

the dry mouth

in the middle of Algebra II.

 

15

Ready or Not

The poem she didn't write in 1958
sits in an all-night diner:

drying its wings.

They open and close:

open and close

to the sound of crockery and spoons.
The head moves slightly:

left to right:

its leafy camouflage: a book.

Rising and falling: the dappled eye

flirts with the nectar between the lines.

Under the table: thin legs twine
around each other: holding down

the emergent body's tensile form.
Flesh winks between the shoe and hem:
all of the white space

dressed in black:

part nun and part bohemian.

Cream spills over the pitcher's lip:
a whirlpool in the scalding cup.
Smoke mingles with the rising steam.
A lepidopterist steps in.

16

Speed

W

What about steak: inch thick:
heaped with mushrooms

grown by Pennsylvanian elves?
I've got no time

to heap my sirloin with morels;
soybeans fall into the grill
and the wild greens wilt

before I get back home.

And my accelerator--

man: I get behind the wheel:

I tell myself I will:

press that baby to the floor
and burn up the road.

Which road?

'I don't know: but I can't stop

until I get there."

Dick said that: right before
he forgot to stop
and stopped his head

on the steel of the other

17

automobile: and the priest
said: "You'll all go to hell
if you don't slow down:'

and some of us are burning still.

18

The Foragers

All spring we combed the roadside

for free food-~the young

shoots of milkweed:

asparagus before it bolts:

the fiddlehead coiled like a green fist

thrust into the air.

Often there was no meat on the plate:
and flavor swam in an ocean of gravy
poured on biscuits:

as both of us whimpered: meat_tg_gut.
Dandelions bit the tongue:

the berries fought back.

We once ate the flesh of a startled deer
thrown skyward by our moving car.
Knowing enough to let it cool:

we hung it first from an acorn tree:

but never thought of using hide

to make new coverings for warmth.

The bittersweet I found and bunched:
each orange berry in a sprung case:

was not edible at all. It hung that winter

19

on the whitewashed wall like a hand:
the small tendrils: stiff and curled:

remarking how it gripped the fence.

Sometimes we fished for a meal
through the ice: chipping our way in
like burglars: keeping still.

We sank the bait and jigged the lines:
luring the prey we couldn't see:

a fish that may or may not bite.

When the ice thickened and the car wore out:
because we could not eat the wall:

and the months of gathering by the road

are far too brief:

one of us must leave: I said:

and when he didn't move: I did.

20

Sisters

Two girls went riding in their father's car.
Red lights were flashing

at the railroad crossing: so the car stopped.

The girls were counting the cars of the train:
when a long girder from a loaded car:

the sixteenth car: pitched from the load

like a javelin thrown on the field:

piercing the car front to back:

windshield to windshield:

taking the children's arms: the right arm

of Mary: the left arm of Margaret Ann.

As the stumps healed: the girls discovered
they could read a book:

sitting side by side:

the left hand of Mary holding the book:

the right hand of Margaret: turning the page.
They're often seen together:

I saw them once.

They were standing at the table:

opening up some presents with both hands.

21

01')! m David

W

When I talked to mother on the phone:
she mentioned that David

was killed in the war:

and I said: David Who?

I'd not seen this

particular David for twenty years.

Yes: I remember hearing

he was chosen for the Point;
another year: he took a wife.
I can't find his face:

we talk of other things.

It doesn't come

until the middle of the onion soup.
He floats by standing

in a proud pose

struck for my first camera:

smiling summer in short white pants:
finally allowed

to pull his wagon to our yard

all by himself.

22

Morning Tic

Balanced on the wire
between sleep and light:
the body reaches out:
the right foot slowly
inching

to the right:

only to find the sheets

stretched tight and clean.

23

Now You See Her: New You Don't

The clock measures a catatonic hand:
at the table drinking coffee

over men: a man: and secret wishes.
WW
MW
W
W

Silence in the living room:

 

the soup half done:

nothing stirs.

5 l' I !l° l I' E !!
W
A turkey trimmed in half an hour:

company table: better wine.

In a room where the carpet

is holding its nap:

she sees a Yellow Cab pull up.

A woman leaps and lands on her toes:
on a street where bluegrass colors

the lawns and ornamental trees abound.

24

Looking for Dad

Driving north:

a low sky holding rain:
red-tailed hawk careens
beneath an out-bound
plane: streaming

from the runway at O'Hare.

Sprung from the radio
into the car: Maynard
Ferguson's trumpet blares.
Music rises

from a Monon church:

washing the face of an unlit bar.

My father drives

with broken hands: holding

his credit between his teeth.

This Sunday jazz propels me north:
scanning the ditches

for his song.

25

July

The cuckoo: the rain crow:
calls across the field:
the sky is heavy:

the barrel dry.

Flashing the stripe

on his fat tail:

a young skunk bluffs a truck.

26

Guarding the Radishes and Beans

The farm wife's gladiolas
fence a garden tended

for the table's sake--
gladiators defending color
against the tint

of cattle and grain.

The earthy collesium boasts
a host of strong-legged
specimens: standing up

to summer heat: green swords
ordered on long stems.

Their ruffled blooms

like vibrant flags:

they show themselves

to passing cars

in colors he would never grow:

and she would never wear.

27

Learning to Read

Reading everything since the first grade:

boxes of Wheaties: Cheerios: Tide:

the side of ketchup bottles: Robert Burns;
finding letters of the alphabet on the side

of a Noxema jar: in the john on the can:

I think I need a new library card:

but the phone rings.

Pornographic Nancy Drew hidden under the bathroom
towels: Shakespeare as Literature: Sonnets

of Ecology: Freudian Grease in 20th Century Soap.

Dead at the age of 86: Thomas Hart Benton said:
“You've got to take the warts

with the good stuff:' as he painted

the Klu Klux Klan into the statehouse wall.
Sign on the wall of my apartment house:

No Deliveries Made To An Unlocked Box:

so I carry my key and use it daily:

hoping someone will steal my mail. Stolen mail:
and I'd feel like a solid citizen crying

Thief!

Locked doors: taking the cure: Norman

as in the hit song: Mailer.

28

Now he comes back to visit with nine avocados
stuffed into his case with the clean shirts

and classified papers: Missile: Missile Guidance:
Guidance System: one for each avocado.

The banjo turning red: white: and blue-—

swimming pool red: trumpet blue.

Oh the brass: the brass of that early band:

sharp as the intent to dance

around the concrete kitchen: into the trees.

A poet sings on the attic stair:

gnawing a loaf of stale bread.

“Stop killing yourself the slow way:" she says.
"No problem: kid:' he says:

killing himself the slow way:

jazz

jazz

jazz.

Slicing it thin on Friday afternoon: stoned
on the idea of no idea for two whole days:
call the sax man and the druggist:

play it like it is.

A little red hen runs down the street-—

the spiders are loose:

29

and Nancy's tied.

The drummer murders the alphabet;

a thief is robbing the mailman blind.
Near the avocado kitchen sink:

the telephone rings off the hook:

while the trumpet courts the saxophone
and they run to sea in a vegetable boat.
As the cereal box

gives up its prize: Freud runs away
with a greasy plate:

and Nancy fingers the loosened rope.

The redbud blooms. We celebrate:

not going hog wild:

because we know it's the chickens

and the cows: listening to the wolves
and Taj Mahal on stereo long-play:
talking to each other

under a full-blown moon.

 

30

Linc and Bernie

I know a man so wild he throws
his knife across the room

so hard it sticks in the wall:
quivering like an arrow.

He keeps a big ax in the city:
for firewood: not people:

only chopped up the chair:
forgetting there wasn't

a fireplace: only burned it

in the middle of the room.

He is my friend and doesn't
frighten me: although

I worry he might dislocate
his shoulder or his heart.

My other friend sits

on the radiator:

reading books of anarchy

to cans of tuna fish and
sometimes me. I hope he finds

a more comfortable chair.

31

Projection

If: when you're in Tulsa:
cradled on the edge of 5 p.m.:
nursing a cold beer:

and the waitress

leans on the Formica and smiles:
when I'm in Chicago

having gyros and wine:

if a voice from the table
behind me scatters the mind:

it doesn't matter now.

If wavelengths in the underlight
can break the resolution

of a year and a thousand miles:
it doesn't matter

yet; you're not in Tulsa now:
and I've already eaten

at the Parthenon.

+1

32

Connections

If you win her heart:

be good to Geraldine:

she knows a hit man

in Skokie. He lives

with his mother

on a townhouse block:
drinks Drambuie

on the rocks:

and always wears a hat
for the kill.

Geraldine's cousin:

once removed: he loves
her twice-removed and once
removed a quarterback

who left her in the lurch.
If you win her heart:

be good to Geraldine;

a hit man's waiting

for the phone to ring.

 

33

Bouquets

If someone sends you flowers:
or brings them in:
swinging through the door
in a gust of February

and pipe tobacco:

they will be beautiful
and quick.

Press the memory

and save the wires;

a day might come

when doors don't open

on a smile.

You'll have the wires:

the pot: the holding clay;
in May the woods

are laced with bloom.

PUMA]. 1:!
e

34

From the Far Side

I like to think I'll find

you again: when we grow old:

our circumstance faded

in books of dry photos:

raising no eyebrows

on my street.

I'll give you tea: I'll have
some too: we'll talk.

You'll tell me

how you went back to Montana

to chase wild horses.

I'll tell you

how I finally got over the habit
of crossing

and uncrossing my legs.

We'll trace

the lives of your children

in the lines of the carpet:

then we'll trace mine.

I expect to have so much to say:

after my hair turns blue.

35

VOWS

W
stick a needle in my eye.

Crossing the heart with a certain x:
needle sworn to pierce the eye:

a finger singes the hide-bound breast.

 

The tongue ties into a double knot:
wrapping in better a box of worse:

only the index finger crossed:

W

The binding loosens over time:

a leveler of hills and words:

the wrong identity inscribed
around the finger of one hand.
Standing with the undone box:

I shuffle through a pack of lies:
one scorched into the wooden chest.
A lid shuts on the wounded eye:

salt drops kissing the reddened tongue.

Sooner or later: the fingers itch:
and the index crooks toward the chest.
I'm lying now upon this bed:

where only a few mistakes were laid.

36

You too could lie among these ferns
with my learned finger and chastised

tongue: both cured and still: I swear.

37

Eats

Somewhere between Sioux City and Joliet:
I can't decide

if I'm the trucker:

the truckstop: or the truck.
Sometimes I'm the waitress.
My name is Betty Lou: and

I love you because you go
to places I can't pronounce.
You love me

because I smile.

Sometimes:

I only wish to hit the road.

 

38

Composure

W913.

So I talk too much: nervously twitching:
going on asking impossible questions:

asking my friends when I know they can't
answer and it's not fair but I can't help

it and say I'm alone: I mean whiskers and
toenails: it's not taking care of itself.
Tomorrow I'll go to the Elk's Club: or

down to the Pub and be lonely together and
come home later and probably take the grape-
fruit rinds to the compost pile. On the way
I'll meet this jay: not a terribly attractive
bird: habit-wise. But it will be indelibly
blue and will fly up across the back fence
in a certain way: and I'll be lonely and
happy: a contradiction of popular magazines:
but I will be. And then I'll be able to tell

my friends the bluejay flashing in my yard.

39

Bean Blossom Bluegrass

I'll tell you the music I saw
being made in the summer:

under the high notes of a hot sun
and the low notes of a full moon.
There was even music

in the moment before first light
and it pulled the sun onto the stage.
Everyone mixed together:

all mixed up:

some going to bed: some rising:
performing their acts to music.
People were laughing:

people remembered:

people came home.

40

Simplicity 1976

There was once a woman who sewed
herself a husband with French seams:
a skin of chammy:

and various woolly parts.

He kept her warm on winter nights
and sitting in the second chair

was easy company.

He didn't require much care:
occasional repair.

Blue eyes at first: she tired of those
and gave him crystal green.

He always smiled; the embroidery

was exquisite. She got the idea

from Jamie's rabbit.

His only fault: he didn't work:

but then: he was so huggable and ate

so very little.

41

Feature Shot

Everyone hunts mushrooms

in the spring:

morels in the city:

five dollars a pound:

found in the same secret place
year after year.

Jack has time

and brings them in:
arranged on a plate.

My lens for an eye:

his book for a hand:
together we plant mushrooms

on page one.

42

Filler

MAPUTO: MOZAMBIQUE--Even
the tallest man fell down:
on January twenty-first:
the tallest in the world:
he was: walking toward a
normal lunch: slowly in
his simple house.

Gabriel E. Monjane was
eight point zero seven five
feet high: but after all:
after the fall: the coffin
measured eight feet long.

What was be thinking on
the way back down? What
happened to the fraction

of an inch?

43

Cake

They say you can't
have it

and eat it too:

but then:

while you're chewing:

it's all yours.

44

Birds

Here is a man with one sock:

a restless owl

with a gold band.

The ankle glares above his shoe.
Here is a man

on a long rcpe: waving one foot:
one hand:

he is not a swan.

A thin boy on an orange kite

is sniffing the wind:

his back to a dune.

Antic in the window frame:

they move across

my straightened room.

Children call across the lake:
echoing the loan:

the loon replies.

45

Change

Living on Richard Tuttle's couch
is not large.

A cactus wanders through the room
playing the Mexican dance

on a brass flute.

A vine grabs the window frame.
Living on Richard's couch

is not the street

with no place left to park.
Tuttle's rug is red:

his thumbs are green.

Unseen this week--his empty

cup by the hot air grate:

an unwashed plate:

swelling in the sink.

My directions to the lake:

like a one-way street:

left in my lost jeans.

Neighbors in this dream

knock on the Open door

to borrow salt.

46

Liberation

Black as the night is long:

white hot lightening:

hot sweet jazz:

finding a corner in the back room:
climbing the spine.

The downbeat punctuates a glass:

a trumpet stares:

the sax replies:

we shine.

The keyboard rises from the floor:
and all the doors fly open

one more time.

47

A Gold Star Mother: Schooled

She doesn't see enough to churn

or bake the biscuits anymore:

but on the table: still she keeps

a honey dish of angled glass.

The table bears the muted scars

of boys who dodged their vegetables:
one who skidded to a stop

to battle every lesson plan

and one who loved to model planes

with little knives and pungent glue.

Across the plane of polished oak:

she spread a European map

and learned to follow: inch by inch:
the stain of footholds gained and lost.
The second map she bought would show

a spreading ocean: west to east:

where smoking islands dot the blue.

She even marked the rosy place

that holds the loosened bones of one:
but had to dream the healing grass
to fall and weep: not knowing

if the grass could grow. The other:

48

in the unmarked ocean moves.

Eight pillows anchor down her room:
a fringe of gold around the silk
that frames her red geography:

a litany of islands strewn

like pearls across a wooden chest;
Paris on a rosewood chair:

the Tower of London by her head:
Rome: the footboard of the bed--

index to the known and parceled world.

49

Jack + Judy

She was stuck on him like a three-cent stamp
on a postcard showing a roadside

diner shaped like a hat;

stuck like a stool on a chrome stem

waiting to swivel a customer:

or the naked thigh on a summer day

clinging to a vinyl seat.

He could read her like a two-bit cook
reads a scribbled order

jammed on a spike:

fluttering under the greasy fan;

like egg on a fork:

between the tines:

or a hot beef sandwich between the teeth.

Together: they're waiting on the night:
halfway between Peoria and Baton Rouge:
where the word OPEN:

in red block letters:

hangs under the words: EAT HERE:

spelled out in neon blue.

 

 

50

The City of Angels Accommodates Simplicity

Among the others in the alley

of packed red dirt:

a tall man: bony and dark:

lives in a cardboard coffin.

It is perfectly shaped to his frame:
the corrugated boxes taped:

as if the nails ran out.

The flap at the head is folded back:
like a visored helmet after war:

the knight relaxed.

It isn't raining and he isn't dead.

The unpaved alley holds five properties;
there are no taxes on the lots:

the lot lines shift.

By virtue of possession:

a family of four is holding title

to a slumped car; there is no key.

Dust has settled on a white appliance crate:
the home of Miss Agnes.

She has pretensions

and a blanket of green wool.

She wears them when she goes downtown.

51

A man in soft white shoes and clean pants
hands out leaflets from door to door:
religion: soup: prevention.

The man in the coffin raises his arm:
takes the literature: brings it in.

He hasn't any room for books:

his room arranged to hold the body heat.
You just can't live like this

where I come from; it gets

too cold: we have so many books.

52

Cincinnati Blue

In the asylum on the right side

of the brain: where we line up

the dead cats next to the little birds
they ate and decline the fur coat:

where we keep close count on our ammunition:
the ten best kisses: ill gotten gains:
and lottery numbers that can't win maybe;
there: a lady of perpetual motion

walks toward the curb: pushing

her chrome cart with its tiny wheels:
wearing five sweaters at the same time:

all of them buttoned wrong.

On the bus to the asylum:

the smell of old sweat and wet wool
mingles with the odor of burnt tobacco:
Wild Irish Rose: and unhealed wounds:
under the fragrance of false scent
splashed on faces: neck: wrist:

in the frantic orchestration

of unrelieved hope: or the calm
despair of a bad shoe. When the picture
roils behind the eye and you listen

for a message from your radio teeth:

53

you might forget to breathe.

On the soft wall of the asylum:

a small flower begins to grow: weeping
its own leaves. A dog walks over

and claims the spot: a bird comes out
of its hiding place: a bird revealed
on a field of stark blue sky:

as if the wall was mental only mental
after all: somewhere between the two
sides of the brain: and anyone can climb it
anytime you remember to breathe

in deeply the dog: the bird:

the flower: and the exquisite faces

on the unrelenting bus.

54

Titantic Lessons

Chance floats on the water:

hidden and cold:

waiting to show us how the sea

can swallow assumption in one gulp;
how space in a life boat

grows too small

after the warning whistle shrieks;
how the music skips

when it hits the water:

and a wallet gurgles on the downward drift;
how calamity beckons

as we skirt the edges:

sniffing for underwear and jewels;
how flatware on the ocean floor
forgets the order

of the knife and fork; how long

it takes to find a spoon;

how soon the bones of contention rise
over rights to salvage

and exhibition;

how grave goods always come up

for grabs: and it's sometimes

lucky to miss the boat.

55

The Cutting Room

We wait by the sea as a stranded urchin
waits for another tide.

The split moon is pulling the sea

back and forth: forward and back

like a black piano on wooden wheels.

We walked all night to reach this place:
the rocks as big as moons.

They were never round:

but the falling sea is wearing them down:
grinding them up:

spitting them out: like a necktie
thrown from the seventh floor:

through the open window to the street below.

56

Last Rites for Dad at Summer's End

It was a hot day.

Graphite grease leaked onto my suit
from the window crank in the long car.
Everything stuck to us: but Dad.

He'd up and left the weather behind.

It was one of those hot fall days:
when you want to be out

on the lake: driving his boat
straight into the wind:

cross-wave: waving at other boats.

It was so hot: I wouldn't

want to be a grave digger

out in the sun:

making a hole to hide the skin

of somebody's father about to melt.

A real scorcher: the kind of day

you need to ask

to borrow his car and go for a drive:
crank the windows down

and the music up.

57

It was humid: too.

The air shimmered in waves.

Even the flowers could hardly breathe.
The hair uncurled;

the tears burst into flame.

58

What's New?

Over the heartland: a mongrel dog
is driving a pick-up

around the block

an old bandana around his neck.
He has learned this trick

from an ordinary man.

Nearby: on an even plain:

a calloused Scandinavian:

pagoda planted in the brain:

has raised one seven stories high:
inviting wind-swept people

to look out.

A woman of substance: farther north:
has snipped the thread

on the final knot

of a Gainsborough painting
reproduced in five-thousand crosses

of measured silk.

Another: on her hands and knees:
disturbs the earth

to set the stage for cosmos

59

blooming on a hill:
arranged within a neat but

ragged ring of broken schist.

Across the Mason-Dixon line

a house of bottles once took shape:
the heavy bottoms facing out

and plainly set in concrete

so each circle snares the light.

These givens: like old bathtubs set
to keep a virgin in the yard:
a wagon wheel to get the mail:
get used for making something:

making something of the will.

60

Wintering Over at Spinach Creek

A tiny beast: the vole:

goes about this business of life
so low to the ground: etching

a delicate trail in the snow.

My own thick boots:

the lugs I wear for traction

on the steep slope:

leave a different mark.

The dahlias: frozen

in their summer bed: roots undug:
will never bloom again.
Sacrificed by my neglect:

they bloom as separate

humps of snow.

Food for the vole: perhaps:

on February third.

Up in the house: in unison:

the green plants lean

toward the pale sun

already low above the facing dome.
My own ear strains

toward the first faint sound

61

of water moving

under the earthbound snow.

The vole just goes

where he always goes:

burrowing:

burrowing through a frozen maze:
using to the best effect

this clean and muffled arctic world.

62

Cornered in Town on the Brink of Spring

The stalled mind gropes

like a wrinkled sail: fumbling

for another lift.

Tube worms dance on the perk and steam:

where hot spots Open the ocean floor.

A slit appears

in the concrete walk: flashing

a strip of packed earth.

The shifting tap root sinks and holds

its green intention to the cracked light.

Like a whale drives up

from the underworld: nosing
toward the mottled sun;

one corked bud on a milky stem

carries the spume of ripened seed.

 

63

Mother Marries at Seventy—Three

They enter the church through separate doors:
each trailing a familiar past:

like old shoes tied to a wedding car.

Thad at the altar: creased in a suit:
seems solid and close: like a sweaty palm;

mother: a blossom in peach chiffon.

He's not my father: I can't say dad;
his daughter watches: her mother's gone.

Our brothers stiffen their formal arms.

Five separate children of middle age
our wagons circled reund different fires:

have fingered this loose change of heart.

The groom is nervous: he cracked two jokes.
Mother forgot where she left her key--

their modest holdings are rearranged.

Both versed in the loving that cannot stop
the failing body's downward slide:

they already know how the hands must part.

64

The pews all rustle as we crane our necks
to see the promise that they make:

as if their future was our own.

65

Sister Mole

Under the breathing carpet:
beneath the earthen floor:
a small and sightless neighbor

is Opening a door.

She concentrates upon the smell
of beetle's acid track:
the notes of snake's brief lullaby:

the pale grub's ghostly act.

Beside a driven tree root:
between the frost-heaved stones:
she penetrates the darkness

among the fallen bones.

This subterranean mistress
seeks not a human breath.
She's feeding on the underside:

an intimate Of death.

66

Food Groups

No matter how you flesh the story out:
the bones say life eats life.

There is a ham hock living

in my right foot:

a moose haunch walking in my other shoe.
Tofu is no exception: everything feeds.
A tree climbs onto the backs of the dead
for a better view.

The beanfield kills the tree:

bread kills the wolf.

Some cows live on in service

to strong bones; the grass: to cows.

The pasture: like a picnic spread

calls out the bug: the mouse: a hawk.
Potatoes died to feed the blight;

one stalk grows tall

expending something else.

A simple caution gripped within the seed:
loose on the breath--

be careful what you eat today:

consider what you feed the earth.

67

Planning Ahead

My husband has named the goods
for his grave: the stuff
he wants for the long haul.

We were having coffee: the subject came up.

Spinners: an artificial bait:

rainbow scale: number 1 aglia long

by Mepps; in the water it looks

like a small fish a bigger fish will bite.
A Super Duper: brass and red:

(number 501 or 503): which looks

like a wounded minnow for the same reason--
the fish: they way they take the hook

and rise; the way they give themselves up.
Catch and release: he says.

A fine idea: though I usually ask

for some to cook: because

my hands are linked to the stove.
Grayling: of course:

are better eaten by the stream.

If you keep them: they will not keep.

He remembers the numbers of many lures;

the date Of our marriage escapes his mind:

68

although he studies the American past:
and we did it there:

in the yard:

where Stoney made the barbecue

and vows were almost an afterthought:
a promise to do the best we can.

Now I promise a spinning rod:

only the best for eternity: reinforced
with graphite; the reel:

a Mitchell 300: made with real metal—-

cast farther: won't break.

Put some dog bones in. Not the bones

of Mariah: his Old dog:

who feeds the blue delphiniums

by our northern house.

He wants some bones for the working dogs:
a treat in his pocket when he arrives:
before he hitches up the sled.

He's certain their trail

will be the same. Why else would he turn:
as a dead dog leaves:

to wipe the salt from his damp heard?

A grown man weeps for few things.

When the bike won't fit in the travel case:

69
he says shirts: Shit Happens: Live to Ride:
flags of the all-American scoot.
He has not named her:
the inflatable doll: a Bimbo
he can take along. Maybe he knows
his other goods
will attract some dame:
one who will follow the flash of the lure:
or the slick odor of motor Oil

and the scent of dog hair wet with rain.

Maybe he knows: if I get there first:
I'll stand in the trail

in my warm gown: talking with the dogs:
holding the pan:

waiting for some fish to fry.

70

A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bike

A bicycle: that is: one she can
peddle with both fins:

the ones that center

her scaled form:

which he likes: of course:

in his own crude way:

with his chain-linked feelings
and geared-down tongue.

You can move water

with a turning wheel:

once you get the balance right.

71

New Real Estate

We scuttled like hermit crabs
from shell to shell:

each borrowed house a ready-made:
our flesh the only furnishing.
Often it was a tight fit:
backbone curved against the will:

a foot in Cinderella's shoe.

Some shells look like small boats
unsuitable for anything but drift-—

"Si si: she wants a sail."

Can you hear my skin?

It bristles when the chalkboard
scrapes the beach;

Virginia Beach in 1969:

when mother forgot to go to Mass
for three days running

and the beads went limp;

when the children buried themselves
to the neck: their little heads

on the white sand like lumps of sugar
in the bowl of time.

 

 

72

"You can't get here from there:"

they said: "the only bridge

has fallen down.‘I London!

DO it in the spring.

It was a town where all the doors

were lions with gold rings

and we had to knock before we reached ~
for the brass knob.

It turned in our hands and slipped:
like jellyfish: greased at low tide.

Of course: we had other homes--

small pockets in library books:

a hole in the ax:

space between mothballs in the chest.

In the desert we lived in Saguaro's arms
like birds. It was a way of life.

The spikes will tell us what we do not know:
the sound of midnight falling

on a rock; how many moonbeams

fit the ear; the ratio of sand to glass.

“C'est la vie:' we declare: to find out
things like this: after

we've boiled the blue crabs:

73

eaten the best parts:

and dressed the berries in cream.

How sudden these facts.

We swallow the grit and hOpe for pearls:
shifting in a narrow room:

until we grow too large for the dead

and find another place to live.

74

Primary Color

Blue rocks are hardly ever blue:
blue eyes are sometimes almost green.
Blue hounds are kept for chasing coons:

I choose blue spruce for Christmas trees.

Blue in the face: she sang off key:
"Blue Moon:' the most done song we know.
The blues run in some people's veins:

blue blood in others: we've been told.

Blue ribbon panels put things right.
Blue in the laundry makes things white.
Old Bluebeard's hands are stained with red.

Wear something borrowed: something blue.

Blue tears will quench unmet desire.
Blue lips remark this growing Old.
One blue reveals the hottest fire:

a clearer blue: the coldest ice.