égé HH'HIHWH’WIMINIMHNWWHWWWI 2 E 5 $04?” ‘57 ‘W‘l‘fitals 3700 784 3125 a LIBRARY Michigan State 1 University \ A This is to certify that the thesis entitled INTOXICATION presented by Dianne Rebecca Cafagna has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M. Pl. degreein ENGLISH O W_ Major professor Date 3A 6/40 0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 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 W , , ..3-'l‘ ‘k‘r‘Ri ‘ {Lab-l a ‘t 253.3“ 32" it}: [Hill-"x Ii r31 " I MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution cMmemS—pd INTOXICATION BY Dianne Rebecca Cafagna A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ART Department of English 1990 b05043) ABSTRACT INTOXICATION BY Dianne Rebecca Cafagna These thirty-two poems represent the culmination of my master thesis project with Poet-in-Residence Diane Wakoski. Organized in chronological order, these poems construct a narrative mythology that may be viewed in the Dionysian tradition of American poets Walt Whitman, and most recently, Charles Bukowski. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many of these poems originally appeared or are forthcoming in the following magazines: The MacGuffin, Abraxas, 5 A.M., Brix, The River Rat Review, and The Burning World. iii ONE TABLE OF CONTENTS one More Beer ......OOOOOOOOO0.0.0.0..........OOOOOOOOO The Gift After The Beans ... Throat cancer 000............OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Easter Dress ......OOOOOOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO The Gray coat 00......O..........OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0... IntOXication O......OOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOO0.00.00.00.00 Columbus Mama's Beer ......OOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOO......OOOOOOO Jane's Date 0.. ........ 0......O......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Trumpet Unblown ...... ............. ..... ........... .... When She was Thirteen ......OOOOO.........OOOOOOOOOOOOO The Shower .........OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.........OOOOOOOOO TWO My Father Tomatoes Relics .. .5 Hand ......OOOOOOOOOOOO 0000000000000 0...... The AppOintment 00...... 000000000000 .... ..... 00.0.0000. The Divorce Sale, 1982 ...... ...... .................... Visit ... Married Stuff 0.0.0.0.........OOOOOOOOOOOO0............ Flies DanCing ......OOOOOOOOOOOOO000......0.0.0.0000... Grandma Lotoszinski's Pern-a-ment ..................... Dear BrOther 00......0............OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... Real Love iv \lU‘IWd 11 13 15 17 18 21 23 24 26 28 30 32 34 35 37 39 41 43 4S ‘\‘o TABLE OF CONTENTS(cont.) THREE Petoskey Sunrise ...................................... Birth ....D.0.0....IOCOOOIOOOOOOOOCOOI.......OOIOOIOIOO Burgundy Glass ........................................ Leaving Ann Arbor ..................................... Green Meat ............................................ Worms oooooooooooooonoonoo oooooo ouc-ooooooooo-oootaocou Marge And Norm nno...In...on....ounce-ooocooooaooouoooo I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World 47 48 50 52 53 55 57 59 ONE One More Beer So many nights were spent crouching in the back of a '57 Chrysler in the parking lot of Mac's Bar where my mother and father drank beer and forgot about me. Ten years old and told by my mother to keep my head down, watch for police, not wanting to be confused for an abandoned child. Every time I saw light beam across the parking lot or heard the slamming of doors I wedged myself deeper into the floorboard—- the hump in the floor making an awkward bed. Day went into night and still no dinner, except the potato chips and coke Mama brought out. Her natty fur coat never enough to keep me warm. (cont. on next page) (new stanza) Mama-- there she stood hovering over me beer breath, lipstick on teeth, seamed stockings, black bar dress, false teeth clicking and always that cigarette dangling swinging her purse side to side like a pendulum. At last call her drunken smile waking me up scaring the hell out of me warning me not to complain I had school at 8 a.m. The Gift My mother bought me dolls that hung from a clothes line in the grocery store up above the Wonder bread and Ovaltine. I wanted the one in the purple taffeta dress, a magical swirl of plaid pinwheel with the ruffled hem pinned to the back of her auburn hair. In the check—out lane, on the conveyor belt, my doll shifted in her cellophane-sealed box with the Tide, the Cheerios, the Robin Hood flour. Zipping around corners in a '52 Plymouth my mother banged me hard against the armrest while I clutched the box to my lap, my legs glued on the vinyl seat, admiring my miniature doll until the house, brown, no grass, no trees, came up close in my window. (cont. on next page) (new stanza) My mother's fingers dug into my arms, jerking, almost dragging me to the gravel as I balanced the box above my hair. And in the kitchen I refused to walk into the living room to meet another little girl in a wheelchair, her skin white and bloated and smelling of socks. I would see how she hated me, her eyes pitted like black olives. My mother would shove me toward her, shove me until, reluctantly, I'd give up my doll in a box to this dystrophic girl with the tired muscles, thrusting my doll, encased in her silent, pretty world into those useless and claw—like hands. After The Throat Cancer My grandfather quit his job as a janitor in a children's mental hospital in Columbus, Ohio. At the train station when I reached for him, his high cheekbones folded skin around his watery blue eyes and he squeezed marbles —- sparkling cat-eyes into my tiny hands. And I hid them in the safest spot under the arch of my foot so when I walked my mother thought I had polio. The last picture taken with him was in 1952 in our back yard. It was summer and he hoisted me up on the hood of my father's '48 Chrysler. (cont. on next page) (same stanza) I could feel the sun on my shoulders in that blue dress and metal burning the backs of my legs. My grandfather -- half Cherokee, boney fingers, plopped the red cowboy hat on my head and we grimaced together as my mother snapped the Brownie. Beans Through long afternoons clouds sprinkled rain while Mama sat smoking by the kitchen window. When it stopped she flicked another bottle open, her murmur slow and steady. But I could not look with her through those eyelet curtains, out there on the back yard, at those green beans I hated, tiny peppers buried half in crooked little I'OWS. Those first seeds Mama bought taught me what it was to garden. The afternoon she got drunk while I stooped in dirt, slapped my forehead and my arms until (cont. on next page) (same stanza) my lumps rose up in bruises, until with a palm of mud I buried each in furrows. Every morning kneeling there, I dipped my head, my sweating chest below the shower, her watering can, and resolved myself to like her beans, her funny peppers, tomato plants seething with worms but I just couldn't. Not even on cooler nights though we huddled cozy together against the porch, bowls upon our laps. Their thin green heads and tails snapping sticky through my fingers. Easter Dress Every Easter when I complained how the other girls in the neighborhood got new dresses, white bonnets, and patent leather shoes, my mother blew smoke out her nostrils like a horse and popped the top off her quart of Drewrys. Yet at the rummage sale she bought me a velvet dress though two sizes too big -— waist hanging down, hemline below my knees. And I found the perfect satin ribbon to tie around my waist and scrubbed my sneakers with a toothbrush and set them in the oven to dry. (cont. on next page) 10 (new stanza) In church, walking proudly ahead of her over the maroon carpet, I noticed the other girls fidgeting with their lace-hemmed dresses, like ballerinas lifting the toes of their shiny round Mary Janes. Propped in odd postures they would laugh at the the the the the worn artificial flowers pinned in my hair, blue dress with its frocked hem, gym socks bunched around my ankles, stained cotton poking through toes of my sneakers. I decided then I hated these girls. Their hair tethered back in meticulously tight curls, amethyst rings twinkling on their fingers, unsnapping their mothers' straw purses and stuffing Wrigleys Juicy Fruit into their puffy cheeks. 11 The Gray Coat That Saturday Mama returned early from the rummage sales, carrying a double-breasted coat of gray worsted wool. Its waist nipped and skirt flared out in checks of red and gray plaid trimming collar and cuffs. In a pocket I found a miniature gray tam, the elastic band tucked under my chin. I couldn't believe it, owned once by some rich girl my Mama said, GRAND RAPIDS scripted over the satin lining. Because the coat hung long, below my knees, I resolved to grow very slowly. But within a year the sleeves were short, the tam strap frayed. Over our kitchen table Mama Spread its wings for the woman across our back yard fence. (cont. next page) (new stanza) Between bannister bars I poked my ears and heard her tell the story of my coat but the woman only nodded, tucked it beneath an arm, walked back outdoors. That January I couldn't bear how that woman's daughter rolled its checks in dirt below their clothes line pinned with dirty rags except for one -— tulips red and windmills Dutch stitched through its flapping printed cloth. Intoxication Sunday afternoons I woke to the pop of a Goebels cap, country music squalling on the radio, that heavy scent of turnip greens boiling on the four-burner. My mother and father in the kitchen quaffing scotch and beer, steam rising behind them, brown water lines running down yellow walls. Folding my legs to a chair, coffee rich and sweet and too hot on my tongue-— I modeled the Dutch Masters paper ring my father placed on my finger. The ritual of smoking his passion, the peeling of cellophane. As if hypnotized, my mother raising cigarettes to her lips, rolling smoke back out her nostrils like Bette Davis. (cont. on next page) (new stanza) And then padding barefoot to the front door, I would stoop against the draft, fish up the icy roll of newspaper, crack it open. The intoxication of fresh newsprint, columns ordered and typed fine, stories in bulk, black headlines reading Detroit Free Press. 15 Columbus Every Thanksgiving we escaped our peeling wallpaper, dingy rooms and cupboards, swerved I-69 in Daddy's Plymouth to feast with my grandparents in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus. The name so magical I didn't mind waking to a cough, nostrils burning with the stench of cigarettes and beer. My six years jumped and kneeling the suitcase closed as Mama snapped the silver buttons. Huddled all day in the back seat, cheek pressed against vinyl, against the whine of our spaniel, Queenie until I woke in Daddy's arms, lifted high over winding steps to a bed strange and clean, cool sheets ironed white, chenille bedspread at my feet. (cont. on next page) 16 (new stanza) In that four-poster I'd imagine myself as Martha Washington, study the portraits of Victorian ladies framed on walls like Spanish monarchs in gold brocade, starched doilies ornamenting floral lamps, like snowy icing. That night my skin prickled just to inhale that room, burrow my face in those sheets, those pillowcases like the sweetest apple. And dream of the next morning's breakfast, scent of sausage and gravy, yolk dripping yellow down my chin, my own chocolate cake rising in the oven. Mama's Beer It was beautiful the way Mama drank beer in the light by the window, her hair the color of champagne. Every morning in pearls and a wool suit after my father died. Her mouth pinched in a perfect bow. How I loved the sound of pouring beer, so thick and gold in a hexagon glass. The way Mama used to take that first long drink, pull me into her lap, into that heavy smell as we stared out at bare trees. How I'd watch her sip that beer, lick the foam, bubbles snapping at her upper lip. Later she'd offer me my own glass. But it always tasted better out of hers. 18 Jane's Date I used to feel sorry for Jane Townsend on nights when her husband took her out. She'd stand on her front porch, too young to look so haggard, calling in the kids for one of those hot dog dinners. At twelve I was the neighborhood hair-styling professional, for 35 cents an hour I stood behind the chair in her living room, combing her hair with a fistful of bobby pins and a can of Aqua Net. Untouched for years her mane was a long black tail draped over a white knit dress, yellow from being hung up too long. And she would look at me through that pregnancy mask, a face blotchy and brown, (cont. on next page) (same stanza) unfaded from the last kid and ask, "What am I going to do with this? If only I could get my hair up like yours." My blonde cotton-candy hair was pinned in a French twist with tiny wisps that hung down below my ears. Hers was dark and thick like an Indian's in my hands. Ratting, sectioning, and piling, I twisted in sequin butterflies until it became a sleek black roll running up the back of her neck, until I had transformed her from the factory housewife with baby food stains on her shorts, so she could peer into the gilded mirror and see Jane Townsend -- (cont. on next page) 20 (new stanza) the eyes now blue with shadow, lashes heavy with mascara and curled. Her smile like Audrey Hepburn's smile, lips painted persimmon when she was Holly Golightly in "Breakfast At Tiffany's." 21 Trumpet Unblown If she caught me with the boys after dark, my mother went crazy. And seeing the red glow of her cigarette bobbing down the hill, I would race to the house and hide in our clammy basement behind the furnace. I could always hear her out in the yard cutting rose switches, the front door slamming shut as she called my name, saying she wouldn't hurt me. It really didn't matter. I knew by her rhinestone glasses she'd find me eventually, so I yelled up, "Mama, I'm down in the basement." Yet she'd never come downstairs right away. She had to finish the Blatz, the ancient steps finally clicking under her patent leather pumps. (cont. on next page) 22 (new stanza) Holding my breath I stepped out from behind the furnace. "You slut! You tramp!" She screamed when she saw me. Even at thirteen I knew she'd been reading, Trum et Unblown, passing that paperback around to all the women in our neighborhood who wore spoolies and smoked cigarettes. Then suddenly she was on top of me, the rose switches singing through the close air, the thorns digging into my skin like fishing lures, those tiny hooks buried in my arms and back while I hugged the ceiling support and held my face in my hands. 23 When She Was Thirteen He had told her, "Take off the clothes -— especially the bra." She stood naked against the bathroom wall and only heard him walk in and lock the door. Unbuckling his belt, she listened as he pulled it through the loops. She did not see him wind the leather around his fist but she heard the snap of the leather before the buckle came across her face, cheek, and back. And though she was small she couldn't wedge herself behind the cold, urine—stained toilet. And she tried. He chomped down on his cigar and the belt cut again and again into her flesh and she wondered is she was bleeding. Rolling into a ball did not help -— the buckle easily found the back of her neck. She cried out, "Please stop. Please stop!" But the man would not. Then she heard a familiar voice demanding to be let in. And then the click of the lock. Her mother stormed through. "What have you done to your own daughter?" her mother asked, pretending not to know. "Get out of here," her mother ordered while he pulled his belt through the loops. 24 The Shower It was just another gym-class shower game to fourteen-year-old girls. Each class they ripped the swimming cap from a different girl and held her underwater until her hair was sopping. But the day they chose the small one for their victim ~- things changed. She resisted and refused to let them take her cap ~- until she felt them removing her suit. Pinched by fingernails, bruised and scratched, she could not see the faces holding her under. Only the burn of soap entering her brought back the fight. The cap and suit she relinquished —— that burn remained. Later she stood in the shower trying to wash it all away. (cont. on next page) 25 (new stanza) In the toilet stall, she stared at her body, at the red marks and rubbed the towel a bit too hard into her dripping hair. By her feet, her swimming cap, abandoned by the girls. She felt stronger as she reached for it but she stopped when she saw in the base of it, a single perfect lock of dry blonde hair -- still curled -— exactly as it was ripped from her head. TWO My Father's Hand I think of my father's hand, the times he slapped my cheeks burning, the Masonic ring casting red light off his fingers. At seventeen I was desperate, separated from my husband, just wanted an abortion. I wanted that doorknob in my fist, not my father's hand dragging me back across the living room, folding one leg under my butt in a bizarre can-can, his knees tearing blonde hair, pinning my arms like nails. That day he straddled me to the carpet to save his unborn grandchild, his stomach against my stomach, against the speck of life inside, ash of his lit cigar like sand in my mouth, twisting my face from left to right. (cont. on next page) 26 27 (new stanza) I looked up into his tired face, eyes heavy with the color of blood. And I had to pity the forehead folded deep in creases, chest heaving the syrupy smell of scotch. That man had given everything he had to hold me down, to beat it out of me. 28 Tomatoes So many nights I sleepwalk now, brush hands against the window frame, click back blinds and see my father still alive in the parking lot below. From his white Chrysler I watch him move through moments more than 20 years, the car crash that took his life. The gift he carries always tomatoes, tomatoes he has grown, round and juicy in a paper sack. The only gift from him I can accept —— newly married, proud and poor. (cont. on next page) 29 (new stanza) More tomatoes than I will eat all summer, each morning while he works his fingers black with dirt, packs them like balls around the butter, hiding cans of soup. Dreams I still squint these nights to mark that face rosy with drink against this upstairs light. And watch him snap the Chrysler closed and touch his hat and start to move. 30 Relics In 1972 my husband took up mining. Pick-axe and cotton bag in the trunk, we drove away from Michigan, from the city to make a home in Moab, Utah. At the Ramada Inn in the desert he left me with our four-year-old daughter, with nothing but a plastic potty chair and went down into the canyons to search for Indian artifacts, his jello belly hanging over plaid shorts, sweatband pinching his head. I must have looked like a woman out of the depression, face scowling, forehead creased from the desert sun. I thought I just can't do this. (cont. on next page) 31 (same stanza) I can't justify poisoning him and there's no war to send him to. And I looked at my little daughter, at her four years in her potty chair and I thought I'll have to wait 14 years to divorce him. 32 The Appointment That morning I was trying to sneak out and not wake up David, who had fallen into bed again under a rage of booze and cocaine. But before I could make it out the door, he started bellowing, "You fucking cunt! I'll kill you this time!" Determined to make the appointment, I grabbed the meat fork off the kitchen table before he could. "You pig," he breathed. "Whale," I sneered and slipped the meat fork under my suede jacket and turned out the door. (cont. on next page) 33 (new stanza) After me like a child, he screamed hysterically, "You can't do it —- you'll lose everything," fat and naked on the front deck -- his little sausage penis bobbing up and down, up and down in front of our suburban neighbors, a tiny mushroom in an apron of aspic fat. Enraged, I stabbed deliberate forkholes into the white fender of his brand new Blazer until it looked like a tenderized piece of steak. Later, in the law office, when I finally sat down and unzipped my portfolio, the meat fork clattered to the floor and I laughed while my puzzled lawyer stared and asked why I wanted this divorce. 34 The Divorce Sale, 1982 My idea. I tell my soon—to-be ex we split everything down the middle: mismatched silverware, lawn chairs, bookends, whatever he can lug from the garage while I secretly slip the family .38 between blown glass figurines, tag it $10 on the card table. 20 minutes later somebody's husband stumbles through the yard rubbing his bloody nose, thumbs the ribbed stock, the barrel, asks me if it works. Yes, I quickly nod, wad his bills in the trade, sigh as he walks it all away. 35 Visit He sleeps more and more these days. He says, sleep is his only peace -- food —- his only pleasure. Stumbling to the door his eyes squint like an animal just awakened from hibernation. He stands with bear-like posture —- squared shoulders have disappeared like a hanger yanked from a coat. His once handsome face has fallen into his neck. And his neck —- it's the candle that's burned into a puddle. A robe strains to hide the bloated belly that once rippled with muscles and now shakes independently, as though trying to escape from a dying host. (cont. on next page) 36 (new stanza) Only his hazel eyes remain as I remember. But now they fixate on the television remote, and a rapid fire of channels zing through the screen. This is a repeat of yesterday, years of yesterdays. He hears my goodbye, and I look at the envelope of divorce papers I sent him -- still unOpened. 37 Married Stuff I just kept carrying the married stuff up the stairs while my neighbors kept their blinds pulled tight. I kept carrying the married stuff to the landing. The landing I called the Grab Bag. All of these things from my married life dumped on a landing for anyone else because I couldn't use it, couldn't store it and yet couldn't leave it where I found it. So I hauled it out from there piece by piece: the screen projector, luggage, tools, book shelves, complete barbell set. I jammed all of it in my small apartment only to realize I couldn't wiggle into bed, didn't want any of it. (cont. on next page) 38 (new stanza) Only after I slept would they sneak out and take everything from the landing -- my neighbors keeping blinds tight, pretending not to watch me struggle to give them my stuff. All of it -- every married thing finally gone. 39 Flies Dancing Finally her hospital bed replaced the dining room table. And each day Mama seemed lighter. And when I'd lift her, she'd cry at my touch, sleep more and more under a codeine cloud, ask me if it would ever stop. But I could not say the words to the woman who starched my baby dresses, cross-stitched tiny flowers on my bodice and ran cool fingertips across the bottoms of my feet. "Feels like flies dancing," I'd say, the touch tickling my four years. And I'd clutch her hand until she stroked my shoulders. (cont. on next page) 40 (new stanza) So that years later after my father packed the Chrysler and left, after she started drinking by the stove, if I stomped the snow off my boots or slammed the door to her "Shut-up," to that slap -- somehow the sting of that hand on my face, the perfect imprint of fingers on my cheeks almost tickled, like flies dancing. 41 Grandma Lotoszinski's Pern-a-ment Those last weeks my routine was to stick a tube down the hole in my mother's trachea, suction out mucous so she could breathe. Feed her morphine and watch her drift from the pain and doze. After that I crept north across the street toward the scent of kielbasa and the woman our neighborhood called Grandma Lotoszinski. At 92 that smile making her eyes half-moons on a biscuit face. Turning her short plump body like a model, popping her hands to her hips, to the touched-up auburn hair springing with spiral curls. Asking me, "Dyanne', do you like my pern-a-ment?" And I would answer, "Yes, you look like a movie star." (cont. on next page) 42 (new stanza) Then I would sigh and mention my mother and Grandma would search the 'fridge, offer me a highball. A tumbler of Jim Beam mixed with Dad's root beer. And I'd drink it, all of it by the third swallow. 43 Dear Brother He was your only son and just two years old when the bump appeared. Trips to cancer specialists showed the bump riddled with holes. The last hOpe the Mayo Clinic, revealed there was no hope. Only six weeks to live in the last stages of Neuroblastyoma, a bone cancer. Those last days for him were spent in the hospital ‘with grandma and nurse trying to comfort an emaciated body, always in pain. You and your wife Jan Saying, "Life is for the living" -- filling your days with other places (cont. on next page) 44 (new stanza) and your nights -- with bars. But when your son died he was alone. The nurse who drugged him rocked him tightly. You could not be reached. And though it's been eighteen years, I know his death bothers you. Last year, after Jan's suicide, you were the one who threw out his toys, the little motorcycle cap and all the framed pictures displayed in the bedroom. .At her grave you stared at his and stayed long after her funeral was over. 45 Real Love (For Jerry) Late afternoons waists wrapped in blankets, Sharon and I played Hedy Lamarr, fought our turns before the keyhole to watch my brother wave his hair. Black wings he combed above his temple, drew one lone curl across his face. Sharon said he looked like Elvis. Last looks we'd squint, his turned—up collar, that click of heel and drop of lip, an eyebrow crooked before the mirror. A final pose. The door knob turned. How quick we'd slink back in the hallway, duck pixie cuts below the door. His V-shaped shoulders and heavy feet pounded wooden steps (cont. on next page) 46 (same stanza) as wing—tips clapped a jitterbug in tightest pants. We sighed our envy, and wished those nights to be a girl in a poodle skirt, wear the braid that beat against her neck. For him we knew she'd always wait. The kitchen of her mobile home about to burst, his DeSoto fins spun into view. How we imagined he'd scoop her up, rings glinting streetlight as he drove her through those drive-in dreams where real love moved upon the screen. THREE Petoskey Sunrise I sift sand through my fingers, the shell of a waterbug like a dozen green mirrors cabochoned into an opaline marble. Blow grains like tiny faceted diamonds over cattails and reeds ~— floating into the hollowhead of a plastic milk bottle like the white bone of a cow skull. 47 48 Birth When I remember giving birth, I remember a kind of death, not still born or aborted, just a rising beneath my skin, that first scream of life as though someone is dying. Strapped down like some crazy rider, my legs caught in stirrups, chin digging my chest. It's impossible like this to breathe or move or see the baby being born. (cont. on next page) 49 (new stanza) I can't hold her in, can't stop the doctor from taking her out or the nurses who plop her down like a fish to kick in a pan or the rubber hands that search the depth of my bones to yank the remains of her nine-month survival. And the room is so bright I know nothing now can save her. Still, as the R.N. strips my bed I wish to hold something, wish against that separation the world calls a daughter. 50 Burgundy Glass This is your bowl, my mother said, the burgundy—colored glass bowl circled in gold. The weight in her hands after running and falling, after cutting her nose. Only nine, clutching that bowl close to her chest as if it might save her. Its burgundy shell catching drops of blood as she races the Tennessee backroad, stumbles over slated wooden steps, home to a sick mother and hungry children wearing flour sacks for underwear, dreaming as she dreams of biscuits and red-eyed gravy. In that front room, her father dribbles salve down her open nose, his hands speckled brown with the sun. A man too big for a room so small, his boots scuffing boards to the back door where he dumps out the blood. Says it's not worth saving. This is 1929. (cont. on next page) 51 (new stanza) Today in Michigan I finger this same bowl in my daughter's tiny apartment. Heavy as it is with rhinestone earrings, pearl and onyx dangles, miniature charms, and silver rings. Today I remind her of this bowl, how it caught blood. This burgundy-colored glass circled in gold, chipped against the curve where my mother fell the day she carried it home down those backroads of Tennessee. 52 Leaving Ann Arbor We were driving I—96 leaving Ann Arbor. The red sun finding us through sets of trees popping above billboards. And I kept turning from the flash, turning from the light of the sun, squinting at the cars we were passing. That's when I saw her. The woman with old knife slashes across her face: deeply embedded scars from a blade. She was driving a white Pontiac and wearing a pink shirt, a small girl seated next to her. I only saw the woman a minute as we drove by, only a second. But I'm sure about the scars cut deep into her cheeks, Cheeks with pock marks. This woman with brown hair curling around her pained face. A face leaving someone and taking a daughter. Though I can't be sure, I only saw her a minute, a second in the sun, in an old white car. 53 Green Meat That morning my daughter drove south back to college. From my window she looked tall in the front seat touching a small scar like a cross printed against her nose. I stood there and watched as two boys in the courtyard below stripped the bark off a sapling, a baby elm twice their size. I wanted to bang the glass and yell out though I knew the tree had been flayed the day before by the same boys, circling, splitting its thin trunk. The shorter boy holding it down and letting it go like a slingshot -- sending tiny snaps of nothing through the air. The older one fraying green meat, twisting apart the crotch. (cont. on next page) 54 (new stanza) They both giggled, their eyes darkening with joy until the sapling lay flat in the brittle grass, two halves spread in a V, snowflakes dressing bare branches, bones under an icy blanket. 55 Worms She calls me tonight my tenant, Evangelynn. She wants to know when she'll get back her damage deposit. "You've lived there two months!" I say, "And you agreed to stay for a year." She denies it. I yell, "Lawyer" and "You brought in those cats" and "Who's going to take down my Christmas decorations that you hung the day after Halloween?" and slam down the receiver. I go back to grading and coffee. Pick up a student's paper, writing he wants to take his fat balls and shoot his wad at me. "How's that for creative writing?" the dialogue reads. (cont. on next page) 56 (new stanza) And then I feel that striped cat Blanche, the stray I took in -— rub against my back. And I inspect the pink little pucker at the base of her tail for white worms. (I'm in the mood for the grotesque.) When I discover one I flick it on the couch. Blanche pops her tail, batting that tiny worm at me. And I can't find it! Cross my eyes inspecting my heavy red robe, my thighs, then my pubic hair —- frantically scraping at my hips, my stomach -- scrutinize the carpet, desperate when I find the little white ribbon -- that speck of egg white so tiny the little segment looks like nothing in my hand. As I drop it dry as rice in the envelope and mail it to my tenant. 57 Marge And Norm Norm worked at the post office. Marge made salads at the Koko Bar. Nights spent drinking Blatz there remembering how handsome he looked just out of the Army in his uniform. Marge's hair dyed pitch black the way he like it and wearing those big hoop earrings like a Mexican senorita. Then Norm had the heart attack, retired early. The doctor saying he wouldn't last the year. Marge kept shredding lettuce at the bar. Trudging home at 3 a.m. to boil his hospital diet, undress him in front of the TV. He never moved off that couch, just sat there smoking Raleighs, flipping through Fingerhut catalogs, ordering matching quartz watches that played "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and waiting. Ordering: (cont. on next page) 58 (same stanza) flannel robes and stainless steel cookware, cuckoo clocks, and blue vinyl luggage with those little wheels, digital alarm clocks and fawn-colored leatherette jackets and rechargeable flashlights. Marge said it was o.k. though because Norm couldn't last much longer. But every week for the next ten years the UPS truck delivered something. Then one day Marge died. Down at the Koko Bar Norm told everyone he was heading south to Mexico —- though he never did, just drove back home and kicked at the latest package wedged in the door. 59 I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World "I like livin' alone in Memphis, Dianne. I'm tellin' you the truth. You know I wouldn't lie. I like bein' single comin' and goin' when I please. Drivin' out to Graceland with Jerusha just to see that big old mansion where Elvis lived. It's a fairyland goin' through those curlicue gates. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Even though that nigger boy came through my window the other night. I woke up and he had me pinned down to the bed. When I told Mama about it she said, 'Carol Nan ~— how could you have lived another day. (cont. on next page) 60 (same stanza) if that nigger woulda raped you?’ He took off my gown and Dianne you know how skinny I am. I had to wonder why he'd even want any. He told me again and again not to say nothin' that he had a knife though I didn't see it. And as he got down on me I thought of what Mama would say and I brought up my knee and caught him on the chin, and started screamin'. And that nigger flew right out that window. I sat up for hours with all the lights on in my apartment till it was time to go to work at the video store. (cont. on next page) 60 (same stanza) if that nigger woulda raped you?‘ He took off my gown and Dianne you know how skinny I am. I had to wonder why he'd even want any. He told me again and again not to say nothin' that he had a knife though I didn't see it. And as he got down on me I thought of what Mama would say and I brought up my knee and caught him on the chin, and started screamin'. And that nigger flew right out that window. I sat up for hours with all the lights on in my apartment till it was time to go to work at the video store. (cont. on next page) 61 (same stanza) But I like livin' here in Memphis. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Though I do miss my girls. You know I love my girls. But they were better off with their daddy." ‘ ‘ 1 . "Ilmillilllilllljlflf I ‘ .-