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3 1293 01026 977

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled
Galloping Under My Hat
presented by
Barbara Lynn Swanson
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

M.A. degree in English

 

 

ML;

Major professor

 

DateJM

0-7639

MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

 

 

LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

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GALIDPING UNDER MY HAT
BY

Barbara Lynn Swanson

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

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1993

ABsrRAcr
GALLOPING UNDER MY HAT
By

Barbara Lynn Swanson

This collection of poems contributes to the question of what
contemporary American poetry should or can be. Its surface is iii the
WhiUNn1 Tradition of open, non—metered line and use of common language.
The poems embrace the Whitmanesque element of democracy in their use of
contemporary people and place as subject, and in their use of the
first-person narrative, while offering a connection to more traditional
poetry through their underlying relationship to classical mythology and the

Judeo-Christian tradition.

 

Tb my mother, who provided me a costume trunk
of images.

Tb my father, who read me "The Owl and the Pussycat."
Tb my five sisters, who gallop with me under their hats.

Tb my sons, Christopher and ded, who have watched me
ride.

Tb Arthur, who carried me on his white horse to
a place of completion and beginning.

 

Thank you Diane Wakoski for leading me
through the night in the white glow

of your satin moon shoes.

Thank you Doug Lawder, Bud Drake, Arthur Athanason,

and Dr. Penn for teaching, encouraging and

pushing me on to my truths.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SPINNIIESERHGIH

SCOI'I‘ISH TEA AT GRAMMA'S 1953 ..................................... l
DISCOVERING BLOOD ................................................. 4
SEAMSTRESS ....................................................... .6
HCM DO YOU MOVE IN FLANNEL? ....................................... 9

TO MICHAEL WHO LEFT: SPINNING STRENGTH

FROM MEMORIES OF A SWEDISH GRAMPA ............................... .13
TIGHTROPE WALKERS ............................ . ................... 17
TO MY MOTHER: WINTER CIRCUS ..................................... 20

(winner in Red Cedar/Jim Cash contest, June, 1992;
published in Red Cedar Review, Dec. 1992)

TO MY FATHER: SPRING FIRE ......................... . .............. 23

MOTHER AND FATHER WERE TO ME LIKE SWANS .......................... 26

THE WE OF PERSIM‘m

THE SUBLIME ...................................................... 28
TRAINING GROUND ................................................ . . 30
THE TASTE OF PERSIMMON ........................................... 33
NEGRO. . . . . ....................................................... 35
SUSTAINED STACCATO ...................................... . ........ 37
INEVITABLY .................................................... . . . 42
PEELING APPLES FOR ARTHUR ........................................ 45

 

 

KEEPING US ALIVE

KEEPING DEATH FROM YOU, MOTHER ................................... 44
PHONE BOOTH ...................................................... 48
AMBULANCE ............. . .......................... ... ............. 51
ALZHEIMER'S ...................................................... 52
SLIDE ............................................................ 54
HEALING SISTER ................................................. ..56

THE OTHER SIDE OF MY SKIN

TOUCHING GREENWICH GLASS ................. . ...................... 59

CHANGE ........................................................... 61
LISTENING TO THE HUM .................................... . ........ 63
THE CHILD FROM PERU ............................. . ................ 66
PEBBLES ...................................................... ....68
SUNTEA ........................................................ ...69
MORNING GLORIES ........................... . ...................... 70
DANCING ON A LINE IN TIME ..................... . .................. 71

iv

 

 

SPINBIDK; STRENGTH

 

SCOTTISH TEA
AT GRAMMA'S 1953

That three pound sweet butter paper wrapped spread
and cheese block to cut thick as fingers.
Cold Harvard beets, pickles & carrots, beef cold

from Sunday, served again Monday at tea.

China cups chatter like teeth

as we settle next to our saucers

at porcelain table in white tall chairs

on ruffled pads and wait for mother to nod.
The solid fridge clicks as jam's put on,

the oven's warm shortbread near ready.

Tea today from English tins (put the milk in
first) and scones warmed in linen cloth,

steamy sugar wafting.

We wait, we wait to drain our tea

to have our fortunes read

when gramma sees the leaves. I see her skin
lined like the table, hear time ticking

at my cup. She leans over,

looks in and says: "Ah, a bird. Look,

see there, Lassie, a bird."

 

"What kind of bird?" I ask, staring
at tiny black tea bits that

could be a bird, if I want a bird.
Or a house if I want a house. Or

a cat if I want a cat.

"Ah, that bird is a blackbird to take yeh
far away to Scotland, to lochs

and heather for ye hair."

I think of four and twenty blackbirds
baked in a pie, the gruesome death,
the trap of pastry, the taste of feathers.

I wonder if gramma is sure.

I look

at the leaves again and see myself

on the back of a bird high above houses
and cats, away from the tall weeds

that surround our neighborhood, flying

to big purple cliffs like in gramma's
kitchen calendar, the shiny page of fields
and sky swallowing me like the king

would swallow the blackbirds.

 

I see

myself disappear from my chair

 

from the white cracked table
from the scones and jam,
the butter and tea —

feel myself gone from my own fortune.

"No." I say. "It's a cat."

and pour more tea.

 

DISCOVERING BLOOD

Crawling in tunnels

I make in dead fur,

I bounce on the bed
with Mrs. Wiser's fox,
roll in the satin folds

of someone's shear beaver,

burrow my blonde head
under a black mink wrap—
ped as a cave

and listen

while my parents'
party laughs
over

coins clinking

on the game table.

I hear them eating
roast beef sandwiches
on white bread

while the honey
colored fitch

waves in my breath

4

 

and I pat the sable
Mrs. Herald parades around in

downtown.

 

Mother brings me
a boiled chicken on rye

and I smear mayonnaise

 

on a racoon
stole
before my eyes
close

and I hear my own blood.

At midnight

I feel them

take the furs

one by one

from the mound

over my white face
flushed pink from sleep
and head out

the bedroom door

quiet as Indians.

SEAMSTRESS

Starched cotton dresses.
Other girls wore
Starched cotton dresses.

I wore: little wool suits.

Fabric shipped from Scotland, woven there,
sent on the Queen Elizabeth

by Great Aunt Mary.

Sewing a string of images

on a continuum in her mind,

mother's feet pedaled the old machine,
wheat-thrashing the needle up and down
quickly deftly sharply piercing

thread into, out of wool.

I would wear a red plaid tamoshanter tilted

 

 

on my head while waiting for the bus to school

and under my great wool coat, this suit,
smearing my skin in silence, riding

my breath up and down, its seams sewing

my hips tight, my knees warm under its weight

of pleats.

 

But look, look at the others

ironed so hot, now crisp and squared
in their starched cotton dresses
and ribbons in their hair. Buttons
like shiny eyes glint at me, white
pearl saucers down the backs of tiny
threads, perfect store-bought stitches

stare.

I picture each girl's reflection

in the J.L. Hudson mirror

where their mothers stand behind them
Checking for "poof" as well as

enough arm room and hem.

"Poof" I think makes boys notice
when you sharpen your pencil

if you walk "bouncy" back

to your desk. I tried this once

in my little wool suit but couldn't

get pleats to "poof."

 

 

Sashsay... I discover... pleated wool sashsays
if you learn to swing your hips.

A sharpened pencil while swishing

fine Scottish wool makes a good pulse—

weaving, brushes their eyes like silk.

I learned the sound of the sixth grade sharpener
like I knew the sound of sewing
and mixed them into a song

I danced back to my desk to.

And when mother made long taffeta

gowns and chiffon skirts that would "poof"
on the way to the prom, I danced feeling
little wool pleats under my dress, and I
sashsayed my hips as if I had just sharpened

a pencil.

HOW DO YOU MOVE IN FLANNEL?

Line of six on Saturday, sleepy
in our Friday night flannel,

mother handed us a mop, a broom, a rag.

Go! Go! through space and time,

propel your skeleton into these rooms,
she'd say, push your muscles to follow
your mind, make a choreography of dust.
The washbowl can be cleaned

in the pulse of your body—beat,

and the floor scrubbed to any of your moves.

But first, she'd beg just one routine
of high—kicks in ensemble
and stand before us in her robe

directing hops and juts.

 

10

Clap! Clap! her hands rhythmed out
memory-moves of professional chorus—line tap
and changes of steps and time.

Remember when I was line captain?

her face seemed to ask us

who were not born then, but saw

trunk costumes and glossy shots of
black and white tap shoes, checkered,
flouncy, short short skirts and halters

tied in back.

Straw broom a cane

over my head, on my knee, I'd follow her lead
to twist right, left, right, left,

make sure my sisters were with me.

Together inside our nighties, naked,

safe moves inside the flannel, hopping,
jutting, kicking, twisting

arms around each other,

working toward the big finish.

Mops, rags, dustpans, pigtails
half undone, laughing, counting

on our knees, rising one by one.

We came together on those mornings,
cleaned the whole house like a crew

from Busby Berkley movies moving

to the sound of bare skin under flannel
over mother's voice, around dirty corners,
through coffee table rings to the

big, big finish.

That night I'd sit with my date

in my clothes, on the bench, watching
football, feeling the pressure

of his movement, his leg against mine,
his jazzy improv trying to take me
into his syncopation when I needed

time to grasp my own rhythm

and I'd be

moving, moving, secretly propelling my skeleton
through space, my legs kicking like silent ghosts,
my hips twisting, my knees jutting

like they were still cutting the rug.

And when he'd

put his arm around me, I'd feel

my sisters gathering their arms behind my back,
their breath lacing us in unison,

into the safe, circled line

of our big, big finish.

TO MICHAEL WHO LEFT: SPINNING STRENGTH FROM MEMORIES OF A SWEDISH GRAMPA

Thank you for the apple
the melon slice
the coffee you left

near the bed.

I wanted to rise
with you
to the stream

to the fish

to arc a line
to intersect

with yours.

but the cool April
sheets brought

rare clarity —

images etched like
the perimeter of pebbles

in crystal water:

 

I saw the wood horse
grampa carved
still on the rope

where I used to swing

and the cottage cheese
carton he and I

ate from with two spoons

empty on the white
porcelain table with

red faded paint.

I smelled the orange
blossom scent

he gave me

on my fifth birthday
wrapped in tissue

the dime store

15

gave him after
he'd walked
the three miles

in his straw hat.

I saw the wild
tall daisies

dressing the iron

arches of Maplehill Cemetery
you have to walk

under to get

to his grave
at the tree

where no other

Swede has claimed
the untouched plot

adjoining.

 

 

 

16

and when I felt
you leave
I knew by then

I had a space

of strength to tie
my self to my self

an arcing line to intersect

my own. And I
was fine

left alone in the spinning.

TIGHTROPE WALKERS

They'd set up their ironing boards

in the front room, my mother Mary

and her neighbor Kay,

to keep from going crazy. They said
they'd end up in the booby-hatch otherwise,
ironing alone on a day in July,

blouses, shorts, sundresses for nine plus

bowling shirts.

Pssssshhhhhh ...... the iron hit that cotton
sprinkled wet from a pop bottle,

steam rising onto their faces like veils.

"Go!" they'd coach the other,
keep moving, gliding, pressing on
a line between two points. "In time

we'll empty, empty the baskets."

 

18

Get your own lunch, they'd say, we're going straight
to the booby-hatch if we don't finish this

- then laugh —
or straight to the booby-hatch if we do. They'd race,
giddy by three, having started at nine, dinner to fix

by six, lipstick and dresses on before.

Let's stop and run away with the circus,

mother said once, then remembered she'd already done that,
giving it up for love and the ironing board

squeaking under a hot load,

those shirts hanging like an absent man.

I'd lie on the floor sometimes, and stare

up at the bottoms of the two boards, watch them
shift and groan with the weight of those two
pushing their heavy irons back and forth

on invisible wire, sliding down and back,

hot hitting the water: psssssssshhhhhhh.

19

And I could see the circus on the bottoms

of the boards and could see mother and Kay
like tightrOpe walkers on fine, fine line,
balancing with umbrellas in one hand

and their irons in the other, waiting

for their husbands to call them home.

TC>NH MOTHER: WINTER CIRCUS

Here, in Florida, you live
in a sun-soaked house like

the others

with a pool to soak your
arthritis, and a cocker spaniel

your second husband walks.

You are exactly like

your fellow dancers

at the Elk's - grey

hair curled, pink lipstick

over Punta Gorda skin -

except for the homing
device deep in your chest
that lets you know how close

you are to opening

day at the winter circus.
When I visit, you

take me there and sit
next to me like I used to

sit next to you,

20

21

your eyes bright as spotlights
sweeping the tent, smiling
harder than children, grabbing

my sleeve so I won't miss the

clown spilling water. You have
only these hours, these years left
as spectator, transforming

your body back to performer

and you do, feeling each bump on
your bare-backed horse, each sway
of ballet aerial rope,

every red sequin and feathery
bow, center ring lips

kissing crowds.

I see you clap your hands and remember
how you used to tell me there was no

hot water traveling with the circus

22

only cold, crabby elephants and
slivered sleep on the train. The horns
screech brass ghosts into my ear, but

you roar at a seal barking notes.

I could peel you from this

no easier than I could remove

from myself the rustly taffeta
skirts, long satin ribbons, little

silver shoes I would take from

your trunk in the attic, no easier
than I could shake from my limbs
the monkey—bar spins you taught me
to do, the stage—smile I learned

to go on with.

we take our bodies layered in our
other bodies out of the tent, tie
balloons to the car, let our cells
light the way back

to your retired subdivision,

let them shine like spotlights on the

houses all exactly like yours.

TO MY FATHER: SPRING FIRE

Exposed to the March wind

my hands grasp the rake's lined
handle, show tangles of my own
creases so recently hidden
under winter gloves, pressed
together under heavy blankets

beside my husband.

Then, I dreamed the winter
fire held spring imaginings
under a mantle streaked black

from old

wood found in fields

and burned in that place
I kept thoughts

to fulfill in the green

length of summer:

23

24

cashing in my silver

dollars to buy a horse

I'd ride out west,

galloping alone

under my hat

over yellow desert
scattering pomegranate seeds

to the sand.

Now, I build a fire in the field
with wood still damp from snow,
pull dead growth

snapped twigs,

bits of leaves,

through brown grass

into these tended flames.

I watch smoke rise,
smell fresh earth
stronger somehow
than autumn's burning

heaps of leaves

gone dry

 

 

 

 

25

and see my father's hands
pulling his rake

over this same fire,

see him standing near me in this
field, the smoke filling

his face, blanketing his arms

so I can't see

if he is smiling

or touching the silver

dollar in his pocket.

MOTHER AND FATHER WERE TO ME LIKE SWANS

swimming in their shapes

as single sculpture.

Under the softness of Sunday sheets
their curves arcing
in white lines drawing us in,

they shared pictures.

The night before they’d dressed up,
gone dancing, drunk scotch

and champagne, brought us matches
that said "Vanelli's"

if you tilted the silver script

 

in the light.

Mother's lime green & yellow chiffon
with flowered sash, satin shoes

and bag dyed to match

scattered themselves over her chair,
pearl earrings dangled

on the dresser, lingered in the scent

of last night's hairspray & perfume.

26

 

27

Father's pants hung down
from the dresser drawer
beneath her rings and pearls,
his starched shirt-

arms thrown over her slip

as though they were still dancing.

His Monday suits stood
in the closet like men
already at the office,
and her dungarees hung,

waiting to scrub

while this morning

mother and father wore only feathers
from last night's flight,

their bodies twined, gliding

like swans over every ripple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

MMOFPERSM

 

 

 

 

 

The Sublime

That period before a dance turns

to romance, a kiss turns to skin.

A time before the heart has had to fill
its own cracks with plaster of paris,
dry as the rose petals

left crushed on your lips

when you kissed that first boy

dancing backward in the gym.

While he pumped your arm you thought
of eating steamy bowls of vegetable soup
in the cabin's kitchen with dad

after fishing his secret spot.

28

 

 

29

You remember making slippery words

from letters floating on orange broth -
you see "sun" and "moon" hanging on
the surface, see your dad watching

the stars out the cabin window,

feel the old beams wrapped around

your shoulder

this boy holds now. And you kiss him
again though you don't know yet

no alphabet follows you so you can read
what to do when you're parked in a Chevy
at his secret spot staring out steamy
windows at dark water while he tries

to catch your breath.

But that's long after

this dance will end, so you let him take
you backward again, let him pump

your arm while you pretend the floor

is the cabin's lake

and you are happy swimming barely

in the sublime.

 

TRAINING GROUND

Why did you tell me, mother,

to be nice to Billy Kostich?
You were a devil of a Christian
and I went to a hell

for girls trained to

be polite to all boys

including Billy Kostich
who took his pants down

in my back yard

while you washed your hands
to make him a peanut butter

sandwich.

"Let David sing to you

over the phone" you said

I should cheer him to health
so he'd come back out

and play statue

freezing me into some shape.

30

 

31

Why did you tell me

I had to take the

dirty soda cracker

from Tbmmy's filthy hand

just because he offered?

I ate that bread
you said would make

people see how good I was

and let those boys feed
me parts I

didn't know were myself

choking from.my own
legs and toes they stuck down

my throat,

deaf from my own
fingers and elbows they jammed into

my ears,

blind from my own
nails they pounded into

my eyes.

 

32

Did you not think, mother
how I'd walk

bound by my own

feet

into mobius strips

of hospital sheets

softly cutting

the child out of
my polite belly
while you stood

waiting to hold

the blushing red girl
swathed in your own

mother's shroud?

 

 

THE TASTE OF PERSIMMON

These California birds are high
eating tree-berries.

Loony from intoxication, they
sw00p and bank in chaos

change direction mid~air, one wing

pulling against the other.

You stand at my elbow

in fulmination

of Santa Clara fruit, offer
me persimmon, grape,

& pear.

I look up to tracings beyond

the trees, see last night's

stars in this morning's sun,

see figures of you and me

with drinks on the balcony
watching the deer come out

for supper on the grass below
while little lights from the valley

switch on.

33

 

 

 

34

Weaving the picture from my eyes,
a bird criss-crosses to more
fruit, dives straight into lush
berries it doesn't really know
hold spells, careens off,

barely missing another in flight.

I follow its path with one hand,
feel my arm float from my body
as I reach down with the other to take

a persimmon, not really knowing its taste.

 

 

 

NEGRO

Mas? the young waiter asks,
Si, I say, holding the glass
to his eyes, feeling a tickle

of wet ride between my breasts.

In the bright sun he pours out
of strong hands,
white linen around black glass,

dark brows over moist lips.

Letting my hat fall

to my neck, the red ribbon
catch my throat,

I sip

remembering words I'd heard:

traveling alone

forces you to trust

strangers & lose sight

of your familiar self and friends
giving only things essential -

food, sleep, air...

35

 

 

 

36

I see those words

tilt along the side

of the bottle,

watch the clear sparkle crash
to the bottom of the flute,
hear kisses of liquid

spray my skin.

The fabric of my skirt falls

between my thighs

and I see the full red

cape swirling from a matador's hand

in the wet-washed poster dangling

from a fence in the wind, a bull rippling

in billows and snorts.

I lift the stem's glass, see an arena

in my reflection pulsing in the air,
the sun, the sky take off

my hat and lay it next to my feet, bare
in the sway of Spanish grass,

balance in the effervesence of my blood,
feeling only my breath

essential.

 

SUSTAINED STACCATO
A Poem Found in the Music Room

of an Oceanside Hotel

I sat with tea & cake, trying to hear
the girl play the piano
but he kept interrupting, her hands

halting & moving like fluttering birds.

"You have to understand

that I broke off an engagement

two weeks ago. And she's here.

At this resort. For the summer.

Like we are."

"I see."

"So, I'm in mourning."

"Oh. ll

"And I want to keep busy.

Tb keep from getting depressed."

IILJm hum. Ii

37

38

Why doesn't she play
while he notes his dying,
I think. I want to sip

to Bach.

"So, I mean, I like you
and I had a good time last night,

and I'd like us to b —"

"I understand - to have a good time...

some more."

Ah... she begins again.

"Yes. That is, I don't want you
to worry about me.

And I don't want that I

should worry about you.

I mean, on dance nights

I should dance with

a zillion peOple. So

should you."

"Other men, you mean."

"Yes. Other. Men."

39

"I see."

"But, I do really like you."

"I do really like you, too."

"well, I just don't want you
to think you're involved...

with a loon."

"Oh, no ....
I just want you
to know that it's been a long time

since I've been in relationship."

"Oh. II

"And I got so involved ...

I'm just now enjoying

having time to do things

for myself."

"I see."

"Yes, I mean like

practicing piano."

40

"Uh huh. How long

has it been?"

"Three years."

"Oh. This is my first mourning.

You've been practicing piano

for three years?"

"Well, yes."

"Is that how long it takes?

Tb finish mourning?"

"I don't know. I mean,

I don't know when it ended -

She stops again on the word

"ended" as if it's a lyric

keyed to her body's muscles.

Beethoven might have just

run over it."

"Suffocated it, you mean?"

"Well, drowned it maybe."

41

"How do you know it's over? Maybe

the music just suppresses it."

"I don't know really."

"well, maybe you should stop practicing.

And see what happens.

Here I slam my tea cup down,
ready to go to her bench, to
place her hands on the shiny
keys, offer her gloves to protect

the knuckles he squeezes.

Then she begins again,

the music flowing and free.

"Maybe you should go away
and come back in three years.
I mean, I really like you
but I think you need some

piano lessons."

I eat my cake and pour

another pot of tea.

INEVITABLY

If he told you the first night
he had a bad track record,
that he often fell in love

and often fell out,

and you asked your therapist
if you ought to
and she said okay, but when he leaves

as he inevitably will,

remember it won't have anything
to do with you, and now after
these years of intimacy he's done

it and it's so long afterward

that your therapist has moved
to Florida and you have a new
degree but no apartment, then

inevitably it is spring.

42

43

The earth
tilts oddly toward the sun, enhancing
my imbalance and I think maybe his
house will slip off, his books free-
falling into space, the pages lost
to him. But I know the inevitability

of crocuses, budding branches,

the long stretch into summer

on flat land. The green filling of
the sky seems to press its back
against last autumn's red where

we held the hope of ourselves there

under a restless tree, winter not
appearing until now. In this spring
the wind holds a whiteness cool as snow

the pussywillow branches out to catch.

44

I dream in hibernation you lie
curled with me, our eyelashes

weaving a fragile meshing.

As the earth begins to tilt,

You nuzzle your face in my neck,
place your hand on my thigh,
whisper the inevitability of spring
when I'd just begun to trust

the winter's darkness.

PEELING APPLES FOR ARTHUR

Peeling apples this autumn
I feel my skin tight as the fruit's,
that red glow in harvest light

holding in my amber flow for you

I make this pie like a soft woman

in your kitchen while you are in your books
preparing. YOU will teach me my life

can open to fresh new orchards, now I am alive

in your breathing after dead years

and passionate nights of misfire with
men who, unlike you, could never
understand my need to keep

my skin one, long, continuous peel.

45

 

 

 

KEEPINGUSALIVE

KEEPING DEATH FROM YOU, MOTHER

That summer

the sun beat my yellow hair

and burned rusted bits of tin

to my bare feet

while I stood high on the oil barrel
humming in my feedsack halter
skirting the possibilities

you would call me in

to do the dishes.

June was hot, the corn planted,

the drum hollow.

I remembered the puppies

in the shed

five weeks now

and only the runt

dead

so I dropped the lead

pipe deep back into its hole
for safe measure

and jumped the four feet

to the grass.

46

47

I took the rust one
from his mother
who trusted me

like mine

and saw his eyes

still shut.

It was mine!

in its blindness
I made him see

me dance in black
rows of sun

soaked seeds.

I made him listen
to me sing

while I swirled
him

high over my head.

48

I made him whimper

to my ear
and be still
while

I kissed his nose.

I made him crawl

in the grass alone
beneath the oil drum
while I mounted it

and reigned over all
life below,

my braids a crown

to the lead pipe sceptre

I swung

then dropped
in the speed of my heartbeat

onto its head.

49

I saw nothing

when my sisters saw
his head

caved

and lowered

rust into the dirt hole.
I felt nothing

break

in my throat

when I felt my sisters
cry in a circle

of silence.

I smelled nothing
except your warm vanilla
cake when you wondered

how it happened.

This way I would keep us

alive.

 

PHONE BOOI‘H

I sit in the phone booth with my dimes

and the list of names mother told me

to call. I would say "Hello, Mrs. Martin?
my dad just died here at Henry Ford Hospital

in Detroit where his veins broke, shredded

to pieces by his own coursing blood.

Or maybe I'd only say "Dad just died."

I sit in the phone booth with my dhmes
gleaming in the single bulb's light

and think of the dimes he'd pushed

out of his Saturday trousers into my palm
as reward for some unconnected act like

cleaning the toilet.

I pick up the phone, push a dime through
and during the Clinks think I'll say: "Hello,
Mrs. Martin? My dad is dead" then hang up

before she can ask me why.

50

51

I stack the dimes high like Dad
used to when we played poker
and he taught me to risk,

not to fold too soon.

The box before me is solid and black

and I think maybe it will ring

if I sit tight. It will be Mom telling me
he's still alive

or at least to come home

for dinner.

But I wait and it doesn't ring
so I hold the cradle myself

then dial. I listen to one long
alarm, then another, but no one
rescues me from this connection,

this closet.

52

No one cares that I have this silver
slicing into my hand,

cutting into my heart.

When she picks up the phone,
the sudden silence

jars the coins to the floor.

"Hello, Mrs. Martin?" I begin,
"My father's dead" and I
picture a spray of silver
coins arcing from his blood,

spilling on his casket.

 

AMBULANCE

I am in the ambulance every night
pounding on my husband's heart
and each morning the sun makes

a shadow-cross on the bed

from an old bottle of perfume

on my chest.

In the A&P I see him browsing

the damaged—items bin: torn gift
wrap and candy resurrected from
Christmas. But up close it is
another man who wears the same hat

laughing with his wife.

In the car I carry myself,
tattered like the Sweetheart
Soap I saw the man buy for a
dime, through the parade of
noon-time traffic while

my heart races to return

through the rear-view mirror
like Jackie Kennedy crawling
in her perfume on the back

of the limo to get Jack's skull.
53

 

ALZHEIMER'S

Like a rabid monk gnawing

bits of dusty books

she drooled feverish pantings,

heaved in trappings from her dark
rooms to lock herself in

with an old man down

the smelly hall. They'd find her

in lacey underpants touching her bare

nipple.

I chased her once down slippery halls,

stood at silent doors I

didn't want to pass through. Then

found her simply feeling the fabric

of a stranger's clothes, trying on Mrs. Angelo

's hats and shoes.

54

 

55

And after that, the time she picked
the pimentos from everyone's olives
while they were still eating lunch

on the sunporch.

Oh, why can't they contain her? Oh,
why can't she stop? I'd ask my vibrant

head. But that was some time ago.

Now she feels only her broadcloth
robe, hangs her earrings up to dry,
waits to be fed

the paste of mashed potatoes.

And I want to find her there

one day in Mrs. Angelo's hat,

pimentos dripping from the brim.

 

SLIDE

On the white walled living
room paint breathes
under film from 1958,

a projected slide:

pheasants dangle next to quail,
woodcock, feathery browns,

reds drip against the burnt orange
wool of mother's sweater,

guns resting against father,

the dogs weaving still in the light.

This is the autumn of leaves
bright as Yellow Delicious apples

against the henna of my mother's hair.

The hot, humming bulb cuts

a tunnel of filtered dust
through the blackness,

lights one side of my face

and in its swath I see

the thrown colors of the season

turning.

 

 

57

Mother turned 75 today

the same time her mother died,
my father long dead, both when
leaves had just begun to yellow

and apples were not quite ripe.

Dried leaves
are scraping the skin
of my house

as I watch the suspension.

In the picture,

their smiles explode

like the guns, like the trees -
like a frame would hold them

to this one autumn day.

 

HEALING SISTER

Your nightgown's heaped over bones
the same in your ancient skin
as in your little sister flesh. I kneel

and trace my finger in a circle on your back.

I hum the song we'd duet all night
in those long August hot spells,
mesh in the window screens a holey
gauze for cricket sound as we turned

ten and twelve.

"Draw a circle on your back,"

I whisper as the lace curtains
billow in this summer wind

over your dull hair, withered neck,

stale water near your hand.

58

 

 

59

In our child's game,

I want to draw something easy

to let you win

so you will know you made me well
bringing me the peach from grampa's tree

when I had measles.

So I mark inside the circle
clearly the tree, then listen

for your breathing.

You manage to turn

your head toward me,

your eyes, raspy as your voice,
say no, you are not inside

your back enough to know.

So I hum the tune, put the peach
on the tree, on your back,

put my ear to your mouth.

 

60

Your breath clinks sound

like the chains of our bikes

& I dip my finger in the old water,
put it into your mouth, tell myself
it is a hot August night

and you have fallen asleep playing.

This time when the wind pushes in,
you must be hovering just over
your back, your breath still -
against the skin

against the peach

pressing from my hand.

The air billows the curtain,
lifts you up out of the window
in its breath, away
from my hand
away from the scent of
peach
it leaves

behind.

 

 

 

THEOII‘H'IRSIDEOFMYSKIN

 

 

TOUCHING GREENWICH GLASS

At the Cafe Venezia

in East Lansing, Mich
I image

what Greenwich Village
windows

steamed to in 1963.

Venezia voices
loft me
through SoHo
to the Village

and I breathe the steam

from a tall glass
of hot dark milk.
A perfect line

cracks the glass,

ages the surface.

61

 

 

 

62

I see Bohemdan breath
rise from my mouth,
steam over the cup
breathe onto the

window

breath of Bohemians
wrapped black

in lined beat

pulsing against

the neon on the

other side of

my skin, fusing it

to the glass of Greenwich,

1963.

 

 

CHANGE

I place this rock, this paperweight
on the solid surface

of an ancient table

over bills for the phone,
lights, water, these walls

that hold my bed.

I will pay them
and secure my small self
to this tiny portion of the earth

for one more month.

I write each check

as if it were a continent
making up my surface,

the envelopes continental shelf

sloping into my own oceans.

For a month I am solid.

63

 

64

Then they come again,
the mail having its own axis.
I put them under my weight,
hope I'll have enough

this time to keep things

unchanged.

How do I always manage
to forget

even the crust

of the solid earth

is in a state

of constant change.

 

LISTENING TO THE HUM

of the refrigerator sift its motored
song onto the arms of the chair,

the blank TV, this morning's paper,
over my shoulders,

I strain to hear

the mourning

dove tucked under the house

since winter

tucked precisely under the kitchen

floor beneath the refrigerator.

The hum whispers against my ears
until I let it in to share

the inside of my head

where it meets the other hum,
and I think I hear my children

laughing.

65

 

 

66

But there are no children here.

I am alone in un-argued—in rooms

safe in my un-

married-to—anyone , un—
connected-to-anyone

apartment. I have

no gerbil houses here, no peanut butter
spoons in the sink, no words I don't

want to say screaming from my mouth.

I turn a page and the wind off the print
billows my face and I think I feel

the hum behind my eyes blending into

the other hum, the one from the refrigerator
we had when the kids were little

when I always wished for silence

enough to hear a refrigerator

hum.

 

 

67

I shake my head to sift apart
the sounds like falling snow
but hear only a silence

so white I can see it

oozing from my ears

filling up my skin

swaddling me in absence.

And the two hums vibrate together
slicing my head in half
giving me two stories:
one
about how I wished for this
the other

how I got it.

 

THE CHILD FROM PERU

I am there in the crowd at the airport

when you come through the gate with the child
and see the signs we have made

to welcome you from months in Peru

where you got this child, somebody else's

child of unseen father and gold-skinned mother

who looked at your snapshots

of the nursery, the park, the school,
handed him to you--

an exchange for space he'd just filled,
poverty pushing him out

of a place only big enough for his brother.

At the house your Christmas tree's still
waiting, though it's a month beyond, and
I wonder if it stands for the disrupted
schedule to come. we drink wine and eat
pizza, chips, and brownies, pass the boy
among us, make a community show

of support for your years of hoping,

resignation, joy.

68

Fur

 

 

69

The unfertile private seed has grown

into a public display of balloons, flowers,
ribbons, this small child staring at us

in American overalls with Peruvian black
for eyes and hair, letting a just-acquired

neighbor kiss his cheek.

You hand me the child

at your kitchen table and I remember

how we sat with tea here last

summer, the house so quiet we heard

each sip, each tickle of a leaf at the pane

each thought that this would not be born.

I leave you in upheavals
so fertile and hot, the house seems
to ask me to stay, to not leak any

helium out the open door.

I look back at your face in the window,
see you holding the boy,

still feel the weight of him

in the space of my arms,

understand the meaning of exchange.

 

 

 

PEBBLES

Does it matter to the naked
foot wading in the stream

which is the oldest pebble?

They nestle close
do their work
grace the sand-bed

in tight skins

offer flesh smooth
curves etched from
time stretched on

existence of water.

70

 

 

SUN TEA

Now sun tea sparkles on the sill
in spring's fresh paint of white
where darkness of the winter night

brewed iced—wind steeply shrill.

Then hot Darjeeling took the chill
from bones blown cold and tight.
Now sun tea sparkles on the sill

fresh paint in strokes wet, white.

When black air hung its wreath to kill

at window's yellow light

spring shrugged it loose, breathed clear glass bright,
wiped clean the hot tea spill

Now sun tea sparkles on the sill.

71

 

 

 

MORNING GLORIES

Twining the wooden trellis,
stretching like mouths of birds,
morning glories unfurl

purple petal

into the pull of early sun.

 

Lined in thinnest white
they survive their own tangle of green nest
yet are unable to fly nearer the sun

before the first frost.

Cordate* leaves connect
flowering funnels

the closing and Opening,
closing and Opening

my heartbeat at night.

* Heartshaped

72

 

.-

 

DANCING ON A LINE IN TIME
Go! Go! move your body through space and time,
propel your skeleton into this room, go, go! Push
your muscles to follow your mind, to climb the air,
to define that shape. Go fast enough to project a string
of images on a continuum, no breaks here, a painter's
hand breathing on white matter, now blue, now red, now
yellow now, now, now! Smear your skin on silence
making the sound you want, riding your own breath up, up
to create a rush of down, collapsing into gravity, feeling
the floor, hitting the heights of low in a curl of flesh
on wood. Go! Go, beyond the rhythms of a drum, make the space
pulse in your body-beat, blowing out and sucking in, running,
tossing, crashing molecules that reconstitute behind you. Go!
into your material, throw it onto your bones, move it like
a bulk of innuendo, brush their eyes with silk, wool, corduroy,
the lace of your pulse-weaving. Sustain! Sustain that movement
at the top, waver forever an instant before punching out
staccato jabs with elbows, knees, your head circling out then,
carving a path your hips will follow, always on the line in
time, making motion so you can make movement, a fountain spewing
neon verbs, spraying syncopation and whole notes, shaping sculpture
from skin. Go! Go! Across the space now! Stagger your levels
for interest, switch from roll to leap, from toe to waist, from

hair to foot, all the time moving, moving from point to point,

73

74

then centering mid-floor. Now carve volumes of air, taking
rounds of it into your arms, under your leg, over your

head, throwing it over your shoulder, catching it as it swings.
This volume knows gravity, keep it going, going, no

splatters on the ground, keep it bouncing through time, in space,
on the line with you. Now throw it away, your time is almost

up, get into stretching on the diagonal, graining into the corner,
becoming one with arrows. Go, Go! pursue a luscious tautness,
proving you can rearrange tendons to pull muscle on filament
straight between two points, a tightrope walker on fine, fine
line. Now drop it, fall into the net of slow motion, pretending
if you decelerate, time will slow. Show control, that your

body knows "seeing" and "sensing," can lift itself to this aware-
ness all the while time swirls around it, pushes you to move
forward, tickles your heartbeat with feathers. Duration is the
study, provocative in its need for interruption, so continue,
continue. Now move on to the end in improv, taking bits of
heavy, bits of light, streaming an array of what you haven't
done yet with what you did before, but go, Go! into the time
that is the line, that is the threshold of your motion, until
you stOp. Now Stop. Hold onto your muscles, your bones, your
skin, your heart that beats too fast. Feel the arms, the legs,
that were the shapes, the patterns in this space. Feel the feet
that carried you from there to here. Now let them take you out,
out of this room, out of this air, go, go, leave this time,

leave this line, your images will linger.

 

LIBRARIES

ICHIGQN STATE UNIV

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