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LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

BREAD LINES

presented by

Rod Murphy
(Gerard Robert Murphy)
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

Master's English

degree in

W

Major professor

 

 

 

Date S/lq /%$

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

 

 

 

MSU

LIBRARIES
.—:~—.

-

 

 

RETURNING MATERIALS:
Place in book drop to
remove this checkout from
your record. FINES wiIl
be charged if book is
returned after the date
stamped below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BREAD LINES

By

Rod Murphy
(Gerard Robert Murphy)

A THESIS

Submitted to

Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment'of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1988

ABSTRACT
BREAD LINES
By
Rod Murphy

(Gerard Robert Murphy)

This collection of poems has been compiled from work done
in various writing workshOps over the course of the previous
two years. The influence of Diane‘wakoski is to be seen in the
free verse approach to modern topics. Recurring topics in this
volume include nuclear disarmament, child-rearing, European travel,

Catholicism and the American Midwest.

DEDICATION

To Diane Wakoski ,

in deepest gratitude ;

To the Crawleys ,

for their constancy;

To Kathy, Cara and Neil

with all my love.

ACKNWLENEMENTS

 

"Else." was first published in 22°. Burning World.

“Ute Through the Window,” ”Accepting the weight."
“Time at My Aunt Sandy's." "Letter to Gorbachev“
and "Boogie in Bougival' were first published in
issues of 1h: 35 Cedar Review.

“March Playground” was first published in 3113 Musing.

'At the Post Office“ and 'Deep Office Judith'I were
first published in '_I‘_hg Voice 9; Satan Branch Zifi.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bread Lines, 1

Swan's Neck, 3

Time at My Aunt Sandy's, h

When Dad Got Transferred, 5

Ollie North Wires Bill Casey for Instructions, 9
Picking up a Six of Frankenmuth Dark at the Albion Drug, 10
Surf Song, 13

Off the Interstate, 1h

Deep Office Judith, 15

Love Meditations of the Auxiliary BishOp, 16

For the Lady in the Gold Jewelry Ad, 18

The New Car Blues, 19

Monika, 21

Mary and Her Stockboy, 2h

Genealogy on Wheels, 25

One More Dinner, 2?

Delivering Beer, 28

Getting What I Give, 29

Once a Supernova, 30

Joined at the Ankle, 31

Kissing on the Streets of Hamtramck, 35
Don't Bother with the Blinds, 36

No One Tells Me a Thing, 38

Robin's Gold, 39

March Playground, #2

Claggart in the Rockweed, #3

The Bishop's Diary, an

Chance Meeting, 45

Love is a Red, Red Trans Am, 1&6
Temptation in the Desert, #7

Station Wagon Math, 50

At the Post Office: Tour 1, Clerkside, 52
The Truth About Eyebrows, 5h

Jersey Dawn, 56

Playing Piece, 57

It's Only, 58

Ute Through the Window, 60

On Discovering You Hard at'Work at a Table in the Library, 62
The Second Course in Biblical Aerobics, 6h
Update, 68

Letter to Gorbachev, 69

Still at the Breast, 71

vi

Accepting the Weight, 72

Detroit: I Crouch and Wait, 73

Drawing Away, 7h

Lamb's Way, 76

L'northodox Price, 77

Death Pleasure, 78

If Food Is Love, 80

Elsa, 83

almost too slight, 86

Boogie in Bougival, 88

Inhale Through Your Teeth As You Swallow, 9O
Hearing It on the Radio, 92

Obits on File at the Wildlife Desk, 95
Cleaning By Room, 97

Homemade Baking Powder, 98

Cave With Stone, 101

Birth Rite, 104

Margaret, 105

All the Bells, 107

vii

mmz‘l'henurplvrourefEm-epe

'Ein Mensch, der kein Bret isst,
der ist verloren, sag ich dir.‘

--He1nrich 3611

In Copenhagen's pedestrian acne,
snhrrebred, rich as ulnnt rubbed with linseed oil,

canbebrokenapartinthehmdsand

eaten as a talisman against the August chill.

Pebbled through with grain and dinpled along its crust,
the leaf will get us through the Tiveli Gardens,
perhaps out to the Mermaid

where geese will henk impatiently for crumbs.

Our morning in St. Male will coincide with

low tide alaig the Brittarw coast
ardtheweeklybakingefpaindeeanpagne,

an enemous wheel of peasant bread

we can eat with fresh tomatoes, sprigs of basil
and mineral water. From the cliffs Just west
of town, we will look for the Jersey islands and
watch the bread and the beach recede.

After we walk the ramparts of Rethenburg ob der Tanber
we will be sampling califlower salad, lentil soup
and vollkornbret M the pensien's private bakery.

Each slice is dark and heavy as mahogany,

a residue of treacle rests beneath the butter,
and if you ask for more, our host will
flourish small baskets lined with linen napkins

and.urge you to take them to your rooms.

Our day starts in Florence with hard rolls,
the crust still dusty with flour.

The rolls, the Florentines assure us,

help to clean your teeth.

Here, too, you will want to ask for more,
one for your purse or'your pocket.

The ascent up the Duane is too much
without hard rolls.

Our last city, Antwerp, is a haven for these in the group
who appreciate the aesthetics of lace cookies-

but here, too, there will be bread,

pale Rubenesque leaves of plump raisin bread

tapped with a thin veneer of dribbled icing.

When thinly sliced each leaf is an exhibition of golden,
unseat and currant raisins. Double shots of Armagnac

in our tea, we will linger over the last slice of bread.

Swan's Neck

From the berm circling
aw daughter's soccer field
I see them,
Four men and a boom-bout
on the asphalt court
going two on two.

The r a: b radio
coaching on the sidelines

one guy goes up

double pumps his jumper

his arm in the afternoon sun

like a swan's neck on water.

m AT MY AUNT SANDY'S

I. Late September, 1962
It's just Aunt Sandy and I
with Uncle Joe gone to Newark each day for work.
Her freckled hands smell of Jergen's lotion
when she folds her kleenes: into squares
to put under her china coffee cup.
She dries the bathroom sink with a towel
each time the water is run.
At lunchtime she makes breast of turkey suidwiches ,
lets me make chocolate milk,
fills out w plate with orange slices and shortbread cookies .
I an nine years old in Avon-by-the-Sea, New Jersey
andwhenwewalkupll‘ourthStreettothe ocean
thebeachlookstomelikennraunt
without her make-up on.
All the sturdy umbrellas are gone, the canvas windscreens
with their salt-crusted stakes have been rolled away.
Adele, Gordon and all the bridge players
have moved their game indoors.
The lifeguards are back at Montclair Stats.
My sister has gone home to Pittsburgh without me
because aw elbow is still shattered
packed in plaster and itching.

For the first time in aw six sunmers here

I have stayed on past Labor Day-

two extra weeks of mending at my Aunt Sandy's
where coffee percolates every morning,

where the meals are all on time,

where every bed gets made.

Late afternoonwhenwewalkalongtheboardwalk
past the closed salt water taffy stand,

mly the old men

with hair coming out of their ears and noses
are still interested in the ocean.

II. Early November, 1985
Uncle Joe hugs my wife,
picks up our two children.
We were here just last summer.
Today we arrive before the other out-of-towners.
Aunt Sandy had wanted an extra month at the shore,
had stayed in Avon late into October.
I can remember the look of Avon without the tourists,
but I cannot picture Aunt Sandy like this.
A stroke, an aneurysm, death.
In the morning, while an uncle showers upstairs,

I make coffee in her kitchen:

scoop aounds from a yellow and black can,
plug in her electric ceffeepot and

wait for it to perk.

‘When Dad Got Transferred

Down the Liberty Tubes we went
away from Pittsburgh

and Sister Ligouri

and the grass playground

and the school carnival

to unknown Detroit.

At Queen of Martyrs

thick, dust-infected glass

and pane on pane

of one closed window, and then another:
the scent of pink-white magnolias

shut out,

every hint of spring kept outside. '
Stand and recite, please.

Memorize for tomorrow.

Diagram, record, copy.
Outline--complete sentence outlines.
The definition of a preposition, please.
Sit up straight.

No talking.

And Sister George Ellen,

thirty years older than Sister Ligouri,

kept miSpronouncing my name.

How'was Dad to know?

0ne.American city as much like anothe --
every Howard Johnson has a blue roof
every schoolteacher a gentle heart.

‘We suffered in silence

and skinned our knees running on blacktop.

Those straight rows and aisles

were to be mirrored meticulously on our aisles of ”i's' and “0's"--
a good hand the foundation of a clear life,

an organized desk the paradigm for a godly home.

On the very edge of adolescence

we were set boy against girl

each computation a competition,

the room itself divided

into long skirts and shiny trousers.

No visitors.

In quarantine we learned to puppet answers

to despise James‘whitcomb Riley

to parse a complexpcomplex construct

to write on desks for want of

any other avenue of self-expression.

My sister and I remembered Sister Ligouri

teaching us to square dance, and here

learned to stare dark holes into the tops of our desks.

OLLIE NORTH WIRES BILL CASEY FOR INSTRUCTIONS:
variations on a theme

I still don't know the zip code.
Zip! I don't know the still code.
Still the zip-ml don't code the know.
Don't I? Zip still: Code the know:
Code the zip. Know? Still the I.
Zip the code still, don't I know.
Zip know the still, don't I? Code?
The code? I don't. Still. Know the--
Code still. I, the zip, don't know.
The know code?

I still don't zip.

10

Picking up a Six of Frankenmuth Dark at the Albion Drug

Down hard on the counter
I deposit my paycheck beers.
Brown as toasted cinnamon
the stuff gurgles at the neck
while I unbutton the flap of my shirt pocket
to fullble with the loose bills.
This tall cashier in a brown vest, the one with flounder cheeks
and Jumpy eyebrows, has begun to recognize me.
"You coming to the Street Fest? .
The Jayoees set up a big tent right out front here
every year."
He knows enough not to ask for aw phone number
or for wicker breadbaskets full of homemade muffins
or for a seersucker suit worn behind the lemonade stand
or for raffle tickets in their tight coils.
Just yet.
I'm one of the newer ones in the pond
and he knows just how much line to give me.
This guy knows, I'm sure of it new,
that I've yet to put up drapes in the living room,
that I'm working second shift for Westinghouse
that aw license tabs expired last month.

11

I touch a plastic silo of pretzel sticks next to the register

and consider two for a nickel,

but they have no smell like the twisted, hot ones my mouth remembers
so instead I turn to go,

change in my fist, no salt on my tongue.

In an oversized blue and green canvas slicker, her back to me,
bent over the plywood magazine rack
a teen-aged girl jerks as I walk up behind her toward the side exit.
Her head.flips to the left and
I watch her try to Jam.a magazine back into its slot.
She fingers a nearby sack of red licorice chunks,
shifts her weight from.foot to feet,
then stumbles against a display of sewing notions.
Together we notice how the pages of the magazine have been bent back
to leave visible the full color preeming
of a bronze Adonis' naked self,
his smile self-conscious, his penis
a bookmark of distinction.

Setting down my beers

I take in no hands three bright-yellow rubber balls
from a chickenawire basket of the things

and. I begin to juggle: patterns, showers, circles.

12

Deciding against attempting five ,

I catch the lidless eyes of the cashier,
wink at the off-balance girl.

"Street Fest," I say, I'Saturday night."
I press the door's bronze tongue

and step outside.

I have given them

something to talk about.

13

Surf Song

Take me back down
to the sounding surf
to the surly, pounding sea

Let me go riding
the crest of a wave

and I'll cry aloud I am free.

1h

Off the Interstate

Stopping at the Sportsman's Lounge
we found live country bands
lime-green restrooms

and dime-store vodka with a twist.

Sitting there at the knotty pine bar,
our faces trapped like dumb game
frozen in the headlights

of a smoked glass mirror,

you read out loud the poster

tacked on the wall:

"God, guns and guts made America free.
At any cost, defend all three."

Later, in the dark, away fromlhome,
beneath scratchy sheets

you said quite Phinly.

“touch me," and I, awake,

full of a week's longing,

moved to defend you

from.oneoming traffic.

15

K

Deep Office Judith

Squats in her front office bunker,
‘Wiggles her toes inside tarpaper pumps,
Buzzes on and on about the

Ethics of the damned.
Clutches a manual of ceremony
In her splayed hands,

Grooms herself in a spandex pantsuit,
Marshalls handmaidens to her left and right,
Vermouth like venom.under all of their tongues.

Cackles over interooms to the rank and file,
Gathers paper in shreds and stacks, provisions
For the siege: our local Furor.

16

Love Meditations of the Auxiliary'Bishop

In the
Darryl
His cassock
Comment

And then he

The sealing
On the gold
Tells my
All they
To

Following my
I am led
37:13-15

For'my

And for seven

I struggle
My beads and
The coming of
A half crouch
My'twin

Sacristy
Adjusts
Until I
Favorably
Smiles.

wax
EnveIOpe
Fingers
Need

Kn”.

Breviary

To Siraeh
And pray
Feet
watchmen.

With
Await
Sleep in
Beside
Bed

The police
With news that
Has been found

A bath house

Downon

Only Darryl no
Of those at
Knows that I had
Father Bob he

Quickly be

17

Call

Father Bob
Dead in
Stabbing
Canal Street.

Acolyte
The funeral

Informed
Must

Reassigned.

18

For the Lady in the Gold Jewelry Ad

Tonier , tawnier

dearer by far than bronze
goddesses

purer than mountain water
in the Dolomites

cleaner than the clanging bank vault
niftier, swiftier

sure to please

in strands across the knees
in baubles meant to please
in drops of

gold

gold

gold

you are more

than

quick

silver .

19

The New Car Blues

(to be accompanied by hub cap and keys)

They cone in blues and reds,
they come in greens and greys.
We gonna get ourselves a new car
one of these old days--
and I got the new car blues
yeah , I got the new car blues
Iain'treadytogiveupouroldcar

got a case of them new car blues.

Now Papa he been saving
and Mama been working too,
say we need a station wagon,
nothing else is gmna do.-
now I got them new car blues
coming down with them new car blues
I like sleeping in our old car

can't sleep away these new car blues.

My Mama say be quiet
Papa, he getting mad.
They say we gotta get a new car

cause our old one run so bad--

20

don't I got the new car blues
me and m sister got the new car blues
don't wanna give up our old car

so we crying the new car blues

This here wagon sure look flashy
and the air conditioning's fine.
We got power locks and windows,
Mama say it the tap of the line...
gotta start rethinking the new car blues
ain't sobadhavinganewcartouse
we sure did love our old car

but now I'm losing those new car blues.

21

Monika

Monika worked the front lines

at the Hauptbahnhof,

Munich's main train station.

She ladled goulash to customers,
handed them platters of

horseradish, cheese and pretzels

that I had made up in the back.
‘Whenever I came with.water

to refill the steam.tables,

she would.step aside

and twirl her right index finger
through the caviar-black

luxuries of her hair.

'When business slackened

or when trains were late,

Monika would bend over the washing station
to disinfect the quarter-liter glasses
we used for beer.

Standing like that,

her hands working the suds,

dipping the glasses into an iodine solution,
her head bowed over her chore,

Monika was my Europe

22

and w Realpolitik

and my history of art.
Monika was all I wanted

to know about

Albrecht Derer's aesthetic.
The Isar blue of Monika's eyes
was all I wanted

to learn about Kandinsky.
The darkness of Monika's hair
was all the foreboding

I wanted to have

about the Reichstag fire

and its pull of smoke.

When she stood like that
washing beer glasses ,

I could see the exposed
nape of Monika's neck

with its tim', dark mole
and I could feel w thumbs
and m lips

worshipping that open
expanse of skin.

When she lifted a soapy hand
to draw back a wisp of hair

23

that had fallen

across her neck,

Monika was w own Panzer division
drawing back across

an unstained Belgian field.

That mole , that neck

that wisp of caviar-black hair
was all I wanted

to ever know

about Germam in the dark.

genoa salami brie wurst

edam prosciutto fontina

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25

Genealogy on Wheels

Great grandfather drove

on the Galway and Salthill line,
Red and white doubledieckers

drawn by a broad-shouldered team.
In the new country of

Scranton, Pennsylvania
He gentled a.dusty-flanked.Morgan

who pulled the clan to town.'
Through his ninetieth year

he steered clear of the motor car.

Grandpa gambled on a trend and'

bought a 1918 Baker Electric,
Glossy black like anthracite,

its seats red as a coke furnace
When the air hits it,

red as the lantern Grandpa swung
Through the empty railyards.

Three of his later cars were also
Glossy black, fiery red..

his last that New‘Yorker gunboat.

26

Dad rode a streetcar uptown
to join the Merchant Marines,
Swept into the armed conflict
by Pearl Harbor.
By 19h8 he could buy
a green Nash with yellow wheels
That had been parked and for sale
outside Ting-a-ling's restaurant,
A place where pmmpernickel rolls
came stuffed with hot dogs and hash browns.

I came of age in Detroit,
shared with.my mother and sister _
A powder-blue 1969 Mustang:
racing stripes, black vinyl top, console.
From.my senior prom
I have only two photos:
Mary and I in the hall
showing off her wristlet corsage,
I in a tuxedo standing
with my hand on the Mustang.

27

One More Dinner

Your face

a harbor

in the silver sea
of your hair,

you sit in splendor
across from me
leaning on this
red leather booth
and stare into
these sallow cheeks
of mine.

So hard

to negotiate

good-bye.

28

Delivering Beer

Driving from bar to bar this summer

I often saw them,

men awash in weak light

leaning against unsteady tables,

using their beers to punctuate their remarks,

men smiling through another round.
Bringinginthecasesofbeerfromwtruck,

maneuvering aw loaded dolly across empty dance floors
and down rickety stairs into cold, concrete cellars,

I also ran into many of m former students:

some tended bar or rotated stock or bussed tables,

some passed fake i.d. with a counterfeiter's

nervous cool.

w business was beer.

Andthoughat timesIhadtowaitforpayment

or rest between trips with full kegs balanced on a hip,
I could never relax enough to unbutton 1w shirt,

to have a smoke,

tokidthemenabouthowthe rival brewwent down,

to ask the kids what they thought about their old teacher.
Ihadnwforty stopsadaytothinkabout.

29

Getting‘What I Give

On a nicked and dented paten
I see myself: broken, kneaded, anxious.
An image from half-sleep.

In a tidewater behind a dune
I feel myself: swimming with green streamers

cmmwwo

From.a darkened stage
I hear myself: furious epithets and odd rantings

shouted to an empty house.

Under an army-issue blanket
I smell myself: little boy sweat
in the fibers of these same clothes.

'With the weight of your kiss
I taste myself: salted, soured, thin.
Getting what I give.

30

Once a Supernova

In the quiet,
quiet,
whisperless quiet
of good sleep,

a telephone ring
forces your name
to my lips.

Once you were

a supernova
blinding me

to my own sun.
Tonight

you are

a naked bulb
dangling on

a bare wire

out of code

and about

to go

dark.

31

Joined at the Ankle

Under my mother's tow

My father and I float down the woodslatted escalator
To a yearly rendezvous

With the bargain basement shoe table.

Though I an old enough now to say

I want white leather wingtips with nylon laces,
Though my father pretends to

Agree, yes Irene, these are good prices,
'We, the only men in a family of seven,
Swallow hard

The cold as vinyl efficiency

'With which she lines up

Three pairs of loafers:

black

brown

cordovan

Two with twin tassels

One with e-z stretch elastic,

A set for each of us.

In Gimbel's once
the salesman asked:
"What size shirt do you take, sir?"

Hand on his wallet my father said:
"Al6/3h,butIcanweara1h/31
in a pinch." My father.

Laughter his wedge of camembert

on the drab spam sandwich of his days.

Through grade ten, too late
at the sales table the summer before,
I had.to wear two or three pairs of socks
inside my 10¢.E barges from.Korvettes.
At the prom I folded up my toes
inside a pair of 8é-B patent leathers.

My father tries on only one shoe,
‘Walks with the other

Flapping beside it, nowhere to go.

I try both shoes and walk duck-footed
In a Tramp routine without cane or hat.
The tilted mirror offers

A vision of self

That a.dachshund could appreciate.

My father goes for black.

I take cordovan and my mother

‘Writes the check.

33

It is my responsibility to

Keep our shoes shined.

My father tells how Uncle Ted

Once blew a big job interview

With Bethlehem Steel

‘When he left the room

Exposing the unshined backs of his

Otherwise glossy Italian uppers.

I am in the cellar

Between parentheses of

Golf bags and furnace filters.

With moistened clods of polish

I am artfully filling the holes

That I am sure

Every classmate, every straight-toothed debutante,
Every looming job interviewer

From here to the other side of

A father-sized mountain

Will see.

They'll know, they'll all know

How our shoes are punctured neatly at each inner ankle.
I want to hide the way

They come tied together in the bargain bins,
Strong string or wire matching lefts and rights.

This morning

Riding down to the coummity college

On the city bus

I notice one seat across the aisle

A man's foot dangling from the pivot of his crossed knees.
His shoe has a tiny hole

Punched in it, as if the

Maiden of the Kresge Carnival

had been planning to string twenty,
Maybethirtypairsofshoesontwine

Around her thick-muscled neck

For the paupers' parade.

It's the smallest possible hole.

This fellow seems not to mind at all

Wearing shoes that have holes punched in them,
But I have to

Wince and look away

And crack the joints in my toes so loudly that
The woman in front of me stirs.

35

Kissing on the Streets of Hamtramck

a pierogi moon comes up:

is it kraut or is it prune?

36

Don't Bother with the Blirrls

Are you going to serve croutons now,
what with the hard-boiled eggs
encrusted on our ceiling,

the aluminum pot

pitted through on the range I

The eggs exploded at #:10 this morning
after you fell off again

on the chesterfield .
Ithoughtitwasthebunkosquad
rolling ashcans in the alley,

pissed to beat the band

and waiting for Al's boys to show.

I didn't bother to get up.

If you think you can manage
to cut up the pineapple into
long, thick chunks ,

then save the lapped-off head .

It makes such a generous

green centerpiece .

Goaheadandsetanextraplace
intheoddevent

37

Cramps decides to stir.

I'll bring a little baggie

of greens to Aggie across the hall.
You check the traps

and bring the juice in

' from the fire escape.

And those lentils you've been soaking-
they're starting to smell.

Ditch 'em.

Oh, in case you didn't notice,
the azalea's still wilted
from the Sanka grounds

you gave her last Tuesday.
Don't pull that one again,
dearie.

38

No One Tells Me a Thing!

"Du Pont says Orlon Division to be retained."

«headline in Women '8 Wear Daily
Tuesday; April 21, 1987; vol. 153. #76

And just
when I

was feeling
comfortable
with the
New

Math.

39

Robin ' s Gold

Robin swears

there ' s a braniy snifter
full of them

behind the bar

at Morey's.

So we go with her

to work that night,
watch her push aside

the drunken hands

of businessmen

in their happy hours ,
watch as she

hustles potato skins

and brats boiled in beer
to a table full of
upperclassmen from U. W. - M.
This place doesn't quite
qualify as one of
Milwaukee's

neighborhood bars,

the crowd is too mixed,
too nameless.

Robin ' s favorite

40

bartender has

a captain's bell

he rings

to announce each tip.
Morey can be seen
with his hand

on the dimer switch
as the place fills up.
For the rest

of the evening

we nurse a couple
schooners of draft
and memorize the menu
while Robin

dances her way
through suede skirts
and herringbone tweeds .
When the lights

go up for good,

Robin says :

"All right.

You just watch. "
Doors locked,

chairs up on tables,

1+1

vinegar in the mop water,
Robin closes up.

"It's this shag carpet,"
and with that

sure enough

underfoot she finds

for the third time

in the last month
another wedding ring
for the brandy snifter
behind the bar.

#2

March Playground

In one quicksilver movement

a school of third-grade girls
minnows to the left

darting just out of the reach
of pursuing fourth-grade boys,
the boys in their hooded parkas
like bluegills glinting in the
ice-crusted sun.

One mother arrives

in her tackle box

of a station wagon,

steps onto the playground

with pink boots in hand,
hollers "Katie,"

and waits a winter's moment
for the exchange of footwear.
Embarrassed, unblinking eyes Skyward,
Katie flops into her boots.
Without turning back to look,
Katie waves away her mother
and rushes off into the stream

of play.

43

Claggart in the Rockweed

Here below my least motion's all twisting and turning,

No more can these lips give word to soft yearning,

Each movement is tortured, no pressure released,

For there's air in these lungs, but it's stale and it's burning.
‘Words of prudence go unspoken--the sounds have all ceased!
My plotting was folly, and yet dark envy's still churning
While Billy, that blackguard, that our with his strike
Has taken my commission, has 'prived me my rights--

An odious sea—dog, put a curse on his like!

Aye, by my honor, I've been no stranger to fights,

No coward in villainy, no novice in woe--

If the boatswain's not tongue-tied, he'll tell you it's so.
Yet raise me no questions of how this transpired,

This business with Bad Budd, the way he conspired

To supplant me, snake past me, to give me the show

Of his mainsail while leeward to Vere he would go.

0 most monstrous, most heinous, most salt-slippered bed
Where I've tumbled unbidden, from the quick to the dead!
The weeds are entangled in this shelf where I'm.mired,

My voice is in manaoles, I've a sea purse in my flesh

My wriggling in vain, here's all canvas and mesh-

In rank and full honor, still I'm sinking and tired:

No sea chantey for Claggart is e'er like to be lyred.

The Bishop's Diary:
Immaculate Heart, June 30

At the Confirmation ceremony tonight

I tried out the blinking spirit wheel.

When I plugged it in for the homily
The circle of colored bulbs

Flashed on and off in sequence:
God's never-ending circle of love.

My remote control gadget
'Worked beautifully.

After I had said the Mass,
Confirmed all forty-six candidates,

I couldn't help myself.
I skipped the final reflection

And let the blinking spirit wheel
do the talking for me.

1'5

Chance Meeting

Waiting to cross

I saw you

trying to look

as if you

didn't see me .

When you had to wait
at the red light ,

I threw w coat

over my shoulder

and smirked

as I smudged myself
grease thick

into the ground glass
of your rearview

mirror.

Like a Red, Red Trans.Am

O‘my love is like a red, red rose...
no, that will never do.
0 my love is like a red, red Trans Am
overbhead cams, dual exhaust, sleek and glossy.

For my love I would scale any mountain, swim.any sea...
except I live in the Great Lakes State

And have only the Sleeping Bear Dunes to contend with.
Perhaps she'll understand.

1»?

Temptation in the Desert
"Coming forty-two years after the explosion
of the first atomic bomb, the treaty is the
first in history, as Reagan put it, 'that will
rid the world of an entire class of 0.8. and
Soviet nuclear weapons.'“
--Detroit Free Press
Page One, 12-9-97
After the test
in the desert
with no wind
one moment hung

like ripe fruit
waiting to fall.

In Los Alamos

we had still *
time to act

after Trinity's test
which proved all.

Time to act
before the plane
which proved all
acceped up its
little boy there
in the bay.

Bellyzdeep, one

little boy there
cradled and safe
before the plane

broke through day.

Let it drop:

and there, done
City of Hiroshima
belly-deep, one
morning of light
cradled and safe.

City of Hiroshima
morning of light
waves of fire

and there, done

as thou vouchsafe.

Ever and after
in the desert
of fierce winds

waves of fire

1'9

in the breast
City of Hiroshima.

No to nation

no to glory

in the breast
Cities of Hiroshima
ever and after.

50

Station Wagon Math

Three in the back seat,
in the way back

two more.

Baseball bats,
deep-pocket mitts,
braids and pony tails
under one-size-fits-all
’ Wildcat caps.

‘We're rolling home
after win number nine
and Alicia interrupts
a shortstop story

to announce that
Chryssa is her

best friend,

Danielle her second
best friend,

Ohna her third

best friend.

"What about Bethany?"
asks Danielle the Second.
“Isn't she your friend, too?"

51

“No,“ answers Alicia.

In the way back
Bethany moans.

“No," repeats Alicia.

In the way back

Bethany groans.

"I know,“ says Alicia,
"I know what she is--
Bethany can be

my zero

best friend.”

And the other girls laugh
in the station wagon choir:
the other girls laugh,

their voices grow higher.

‘We're rolling home
after win number nine.
Three in the back seat
in the way back

one more 0

52

At the Post Office:
Tour 1, Clerkside
Rooted deep in the flatlands
Phil dials up his hearing aid
To catch us ribbing him
About the old Roosevelt Park days.

Michelle scrambles past Paul

In search of a choice tray of letters,
‘Whistles at Gary's pects.

He blows smoke rings to her.

T.O. swigs a soda pap and

Loads up on bank statements

As Dave-thquriver brings in iced tea
For Our Lady of the Motorcycle.

Down the black-stoned aisle marches
Mister Ed in a 50's sweater vest
That offsets his permapscowl.
Production still figures.

53

Doug's throaty laugh rustles

Through stale air,

The blowers kick on and the

Captain ogles another Hawaiian postcard.

KAMart flyers are spread, chunks are up.
Theresa pivots in the parcel post.
John's filing a grievance and it's an hour

Before the carriers come up over the horizon.

The Truth About Eyebrows

Val is driving the Duster
while Kathy snares in the back.

I'm.up front

reading maps through Chicago.

"Then this other guy said to me
on our first night out,

'I'll bet you've got
a great bush.

'1 can always tell
by a girl's eyebrows.'"

We met this Val
through the Ride Board.

I swallow hard,
trace my finger down the Dan.Ryan.

Val is Lebanese and talkative.
Her eyebrows are into one another.

55

”I had something to tell him, too.
'Let me see your thumbs,' I said,

"'I can tell what a guy's got
by looking at his thumbs.'”

Val takes the lane for Milwaukee
and I shove my hands under my legs.

"What a bastard. Took my stereo
and turned out to be bi-sexual.”

“Too bad,“ I mumble back.
She turns full-face toward me.

"Hey," she says, "at least I found out
the truth about eyebrows."

56

Jersey Dawn

There on the sand
cold in late August
in the earliest morning
we watched the water
dark as mssels
chasing itself
wave upon wave
up onto the deserted beach .
We two in summer

waited, watched, wondered
until the rim of a disc
rose over the sea-edge
and the first light of day
walked J sous-footed
across the field of ocean waves
tiptoeing ' in to shore
leaving behind
a single line of gold
and permission

for us to go.

57

Playing Piece

I.watch myself swing my arms

at the intern

who is deadening my body

so he can scrape

from.the open suitcase of my insides
the only life that will ever grow there.

In recovery

a raccoon comes,

claws clattering on the linoleum,
to wash her melon rind

in my sweat.

She scratches at my shirt pocket
until she finds

the playing piece

of'Swiss mint chocolate

in green foil

you pressed into my palm
at the door.

58

It's Only

Lard causes temporary evacuations

LOS ANGELES — About 500 gallons of brown
slime flowing into a storm drain caused authorities
to order 20 people out of homes Sunday until they -
determined it was only lard. officials said.

Compiled lrom Associated Press reports.

go on back

we thought the Manhattan Project
might be oozing back
across the desert

the mountains
go on back

we tested the acid content
looked for carcinogens
called the C.I.A.'s

department of gels

go onback

we ruled out Diablo Canyon
eliminated any thought of La Brea

59

gurgling once more

in search of bones

go on back

we found Aunt Flossy's truck stop
north on 101

had fried up

a record mess of hash browns

go on back
it's only lard

6O

Ute Through the'Window

I was the one who wanted to»drive up the coast.
You wanted Interstate 5, more direct, more sensible.
At Laguna Beach, our compromise point,

You swung eastinrd putting an oceanscape in the rearview mirror.

The children slept straight through it all.

My can of soda rattled out of my hands and
Soaked my knees--when it happened.

Stepped at a light, we watched a bone white truck

Vault the median, slamidown atop our subcompact's hood.

Before we knew no harm would come to us, before glass shattered,
“Jesus, help us!“ came out of your mouth and from.mine

Came only a question lost in childhood forty years before.

"We ist der Grossvater?"
'Komm mal hier, du Armste,
Dein Grossvater hat dich durch das Fenster geworfen.

Du lebst, er nicht. Du lebst, er nicht."

The cellar. A potato bin. The weak smell of ersata coffee.
My grandfather mouthing a cigarette butt from.his pocket.
Knee to knee in the darkness.

That nightmare noise outside again.

61

In old Cologne, Silvan-Strasse. A plaster-tall flat.
We and the Bbhms in the cellar.

Frau Behm with a sheen of lard on her hands.

m grandfather with an unlit cigarette butt.

'Jetst geht's los,‘ my widowed mother said.
Grandfather gave her his hard . Frau Bbhm sang
'Hier ist der Daumen, er pflickt die Plaumen,“
While I showed ow thumb and fingers one by one.

"Wo ist der Grossvater?“ I had asked.

As the block of flats was collapsing, Grandfather
Had lifted me up, rushed with me to the wall and
Shaved me out the one window to safety.

In Costa Mesa, sitting alongside the road, I watched

Paramedics in firefighter helmets palpating our daughter's abdomen,
Felt on w own shoulders the hand of a stranger casing to help,

A woman saying, “Come here, little one. Your grandfather..."

62

ON DISCOVERING YOU HARD AT WORK AT A TABLE IN THE LIBRARY

recognizing you
by that tilt of your head

by the slope of your shoulder

sitting down
waiting without word

for you to look up

wanting you
never to realize

I was there at all

remembering
a morning hike

near Kalkaska:

a fox on open ground
sixty paces or so up ahead
moving through thistle and moonseed

63

brush-tailed fox

upwind and breathing easy
unaware of my intruder's eyes

apologising
to the flush in your face
for having startled you

carrying off
the glow from your eyes
like foxfire from a fallen log

61;

The Second Course in Biblical Aerobics

Though I've done work in plumbing,
crawled inside boilers

patched cracked urinals

art! silenced leaky faucets ,

still I'm no joiner, no fitter.

There have been efforts to dissuade me.

Icanrememberhowintheearlyfall
thosetwowmensatattheredwoodtable,

a hase around them both from the sun

as it cast its amber spot

on the flagstone patio.

I nodded at each point in the cornersation
where it seemd appropriate,

mailed whenever they looked at me with raised eyebrows ,
tried hard to be a colleague,

to be at ease,

Iv palms film‘- on my thigh.

m toes wiggling in my dress shoes.

Miss Simone was leaving for Arizona,

leaving me her two sections of Remedial Reading,
her three sections of Junior High English,

her arsenal of granar books.

65

Mrs. Wozniak was serving coffee and kolachy,

smoothing the transition

as she smoothed my resume before her.

“You did very well your last two years in school,“

she said, choosing to ignore uneven beginnings.

"Are you familiar with,“ she asked

and turned the conversation to a worldwide organisation
reserved for those who score in the top percentile

on a standard I.Q. test.

'Three of the teachers in our department belong.”

Perhaps, she went on, I'd be interested

in taking the test some month.

I still wonder

what they do,

what they do with their fancy logo and monthly newsletters .
Chess through the mail, anagrams, conundrums, palindromes?
Do they compare and contrast the Ottoman, the Seljuk Turks?
Do they pour their intellects into black holes 1

Worthy causes 7

Last week I drapped in on Bob at St. Mary's.

It was working for him that taught me about pipe cement
and pH balance and spot welding.

Waiting for him in the stale smoke of the teachers' lounge
I picked up and read the Sunday bulletin

66

to find that a second, follow-up course in “Biblical Aerobics“
was now forming.

I guess there are precedents:

David before the ark,

Salase's dance that cost the Baptist his head,
even Ignatius of Loyola's spiritual exercises.
No doubt there will be a flock of them

down there in the school cafeteria,

a leader in leotards at the microphone ,

taped psalmody on a boom-box,

Jiggly thighs arxi flushed faces:

good fun for all

according to chapter and verse . As for me ,

I'd rather run.

Three summers ago I hitchhiked into New Hampshire
and remarked to one of my drivers

how stupid the sheep outside our windows looked
huddling together under a hanging catalpa tree.

"A bad storm is coming up,“ he told me,

"you can always tell when they're acting that way,
it'll be a bad blow."

Silenced, I brooded on the gaps

67

in my big city education

and watched out my window

as sycamores, pin oaks and Norway maples
flew past like strangers

I would never meet.

Sorry, Mrs. Hbsniak,

I don't want to Join.

But when those teachers

cluster in the hallway

like livestock huddling against

a storm which

I can neither see nor slell,

I cannot help wondering

what it is they do in such close quarters.

68

Update

"LUST Target of EPA Regulations"

«headline in Engig‘ eering Times
May 1987

Sure

they can
talk about
leaking
underground
storage
tanks ,

but can

we be

sure 7

This time
they've
gone

too

far.

R

69

Letter to Gorbachev

"Only a madman would have walked away
from the prOposals we had on the table."

--Mikhail Gorbachev after the
Reykjavik talks in 1986.

Open it now,

now that the alarum has been given.

we've been stockpiling for this very moment.
You have seven minutes.

Karaganda has nine.

Push your own buttons, if you so insists

It won't matter.

You've seen the reports.

Nothing you can launch will get through.
All that wasted throwbweight. Pity.
Eighteen of ours will be enough.

You know which cities. You know.

Open the little package.

Why not?

Have you found the porkpie hat? Put it on.

Look: Oppy's shadow.

Press the finger circles as indicated. 7/’—‘\\\\\
( \\x 457.

70

Repeat many times.

Hear the ticking?’ Hear your pulse?
Continue.
Smell the square.

LJ
It's the cologne I wear.
Your wife complimented me on it.
Go on.
Rip off the rectangular slip at the bottom.
Eat it.
Do you have Stolichnaya close by?
Taste how paper goes down.
Why not?
Care to press the finger circles again?
Here, do this.
‘We've been waiting.
Kiss the paper.
I had a black Lab once
who kissed the vet's hand that put him down.
Kiss the paper.
It's your summer at SevastOpol.

Kiss it goodbye.

71

Still at the Breast

One child's screams would be enough.
Both are up now,
the apartment damp-cold with
the beginning of autumn, their impatient cries.
I quiet the eldest, settle her back
into the heap of her covers.
Our son I bring to you,
woman whose breasts
still bleed milk for his hunger.
In your soft hissing I hear the words:
“Once, Just one night,
I'd like to get one full night of sleep.”

I feel.your words catch in my teeth--
canght back between my molars

like corn on the cob.

I will grind and pick at them

all the night long.

72

Accepting the Weight
(for Whitney Balliett)

They rise with the frost,
slip out of their woolly sleep:
my Alpha Wolf,

w caracara, uncurling her talons.

At first meal I am Joined by

a baby cheetah, small-skulled an! poised,
waryofthewayIccddlewbadger, our
flat-nosed tablemate.

On winter patrol, Walter and Jingles,
sibling samoyeds, dust through snowbanks
in search of fieldmice, recalcitrant criminals,

lost travelers, bridges out.

Only in the exhaustion of evening,
ottered safely into their bunkbeds ,
do any children accept the weight
of their sleew lmman forms.

73

Detroit:

I Crouch and Wait
Icrouchandwaitinthecoldwithinadrum,
DutI spininthebarrelwhenathumbclicks,
Ifeelasharpedgemthelong, grooved

bore-hole of the pistol ,
I split the heaving of a ribcage
in the schoolyard.

7h

Drawing.Away

Inuit women

circle the fire
scraping their teeth
on the mussels

they have gathered
under the ice

by candlelight.

In rounds they intone
the caribou song,
calling to the wind
for tuktoojuak,

a big caribou,

to come

their way.

The fire is thick
with pine boughs

and seared

Kokanee salmon.

Up the ridge

past giant white-firs

a lone moonwolf howls.

75

The oldest woman
.‘withdraws first.
In the folds
of her blanket
she finds
a stone seal
and the carved box.
She takes out
the withered toe
darkening
its hoof-nail
still on
kisses it three times
once
for each of her
three sons
and draws away
from the cold.

76

Lamb's Way

If I a lamb would tend the flock
I am not lamb

If I a lamb would pasture with goats
I am not lamb

And may lose my wool

May lose my will

To stray in either way.

77

Unorthodox Price

Dig deep, the woman said,
Consider the lilly of the field
Pendant.

Armenian gold

At an unorthodox price.
Bazaar behavior

Among the well-heeled.
Blue signatures,

a check against inflation
and a diamond wolf

at the door.

The couple next to us
drops nineteen hundred
for two curios

a “18

and an ankle bracelet.
“It's a fundraiser,"

nw wife reminds me

as we queue up

with our crystal
sparrow.

”And dm't let it fall."

78

Death Pleasure

Leather gloves leaye no prints to trace,
but the sensation is deadened.

The hardening of artery and vein
beneath the thumb and middle finger

is much more acute and discernible

when the bare hand is used.

A blunt object of sufficient weight

will crush the skull.

Strike to snap the swivel-point

between trunk and head.

Repeated backward kicks,

slamming the heel against the occipital bone,
will allow one the opportunity of walking

on the exposed cerebellum,

calibrating its give beneath the boot as the shades
of pink and gray disappear

in the copious, slippery blood.

A jagged section of rusting quarter panel

or a mangled length of scrapyard bumper
will slice the abdominal cavity open in seconds.

To completely gut the individual

79

bothhandscanbeusedinascoopingmotion
that pulls out and down,

yanking at what fails to come away easily.
The intestines will steam on the pavement.

A high-powered rifle leaves nothing to chance ,
but careless shots can render the body formless.
One well-placed report from the proper distance
will, for instance, leave the ribcage intact.
Thestockoftheriflecanbeused,
standingabove thebodyand swinginghard,

to crush both halves of the ribcage—

a gash first to the right,

then to the left of the sternum.

The sound,

like a rare church organ

readied for Bach's Mass in B Minor,

like a surprised quail

flushed from a dense thicket by a good dog,

is exquisite.

80

If Food is Love

‘What are they saving for?
They make their children
eat at a separate table
in the other room

and give them

Food Club chicken noodle
marked down white bread
tube of generic margarine
cardboard pizzas from the freezer
jello with chunks of
fruit cocktail locked in
chicken dogs and
American cheese slices
He's in computer design.
She's at the university.
Together they pull down

damn near six figures a year.

‘When we arrive as

the invited dinner guests
they serve spaghetti

with meat sauce from a jar

and put out plastic containers

8L

of yellowish coleslaw.

The coffee is instant,

the "cream" a bone-dry powder.
For dessert they serve

a microwaved cake from.a mix
that they let their kids ice
from a can that looks like it
should have playdough in it.

After dinner

we hold our mugs in our hands
and listen to Copeland's
“Appalachian Spring”

on compact disc

while the children

play in the basement.
George talks about the
performance

of their mutual fund

and I imagine him

over his wife

in the dark

holding up his weight

with hands on her shoulders.

Susan shares the news
that she has been
granted tenure

and I think of her
rubbing herself
against his thigh
long after he

has gone soft.

When they come

to our apartment

these two rave over
cuddled eggs

tortellini in broth
steamed clams

chocolate mousse .

With the money at hand ,
yet they deny thmselves .

What are they saving for ‘t

53

Elsa

That dry bit of haddock

you pushed back out from between your teeth
and let hang there

until the attendant had no choice

but to take it back"

I thought you were insisting on your dignity
refusing to be force-fed
like a suckling torn from her mother.

I thought you were stubborn as ever
feisty and still clutching at your wits
an electrical storm behind thick frontal bone.

I looked at you hard.

Without hair, your skull was reduced to

pure form, a tumip shaken loose from Latvian earth.
Your body tapered fras shoulders

to a slumping triangle of skin hidden beneath

a single layer of acrylic wrath.

When you rasped into sleep,
my legs tensed with

81+

wanting to stand and walk and go.

I heard the sound

of my drunken mother's telephone voice
saying, "I'll be back soon" and

"We'll come see you again“.-

heard that voice until I had to bite through
the sparking cord.and drOp the receiver

and feel on the linoleum

for words of my own.

‘When I finally did stand

squeeze your hand

rub your spindly shoulder

your eyes shot open to full blue
the highbeams we flick on in sudden fog
knowing they won't help

and in my own voice

I told you

how'you had.been right

to be so angry

that your sister had.died first.

"He's a fine boy," you said

before closing your eyes

85

on my three year old son
on me

on that last bit of fish
you pushed back out

and would not swallow.

86

almost too slight

rolling over
against desire's
married edge

to hear scrapes

scuffing the carpet
almost too slight

against the breathing
of heating ducts
and swelling wood

unmistakable sound

put long ago

to memory

those footfalls
and then tiny fingers
tapping my bare shoulder

a hand held out
hand of the penitent
hand of the hangman

87

a hand imploring by
tap tap tap tap

and then a whisper

"page“ 10"
in the car's web

"I 'm scared."

88
88

Boogie in Bougival

(un homge 3 Renoir)

Myredbeardwillbegrovmoutbythen,
m straw hat pale as Sauterne and pulled down low
willprovidetheproper dash ofwhimseyandstyle,and

you in the holiday dress with bustle and scalloped edges,
bursting with crinoline, will bend back from the uist,

yourweightgiventomeaslwantyoutogiveme

your eyes, your eyes dark as the mussels served to us
in a tidal pool of private herbs and clarified butter,
your eyes that I would savor like each feel of each shell.

Hylipswillbeperfumedwithnargaux,qtmgue
will swirl with Boursin and freshly steamed artichokes
whenwebegin withagavottee, acountry air,

a rembered turn frm the Slavonic dances.
You will laugh at my Celtic kickings and together
wewillpromenadeinaritualfortwo.

89

Those top-hatted bon hanes and puff-sleeved madames
will witness their first Texas Two-Step, will have to
step aside for our double dipsy-doodle .

Shouldwe showthaathefunhchicken, the fresh-desk,
theoaktree,thedeadbugandthepogot
We'll havetojitterbuglikebees inthenoomay u.

Wecanmoomnlkandcakewalktwicearound,
thenslaliancelikedesperatefloudinians
tryingtoextricateyoun-cnyoursldrthoops.

Whentheycuetocollectthewiltedbeer, emptycarafes,
the bread crusts, the casing slabs of brie,
we'll boogie there inBougival until the paint runs dry.

9O

Inhale Through Your Teeth As You Swallow

When you step out onto the platform without luggage
you will be greeted
by a figure in a green-caped woolen coat
whowillmake sureyoutake one ofthethree-page brochures.
Read it.
Youwilllearnthehistoryofatown.
Youwillseeasketchofthearea
as it was centuries before .
Before you know what.
But read on.
As you walk toward the camp
you will pass Japanese tourists,
Canadian, American, Australian tourists,
and Germn soldiers.
Don't be distracted.
The peeple of Dachau are
pressing their words into your hands.
We did not know.
The camp was outside the city.
Life went an.
Donotjudgeourcitybasedonwhatyousee today.
We are people like you.
Until the end, we did not know.
Look at the photos. Read the lists. Touch the bedframes.

91

Stare into the oven drawers.
Take someone's hand as you stroll the enclosed grounds.
Read the iron gate's nought inscription:
Arbeit Macht Frei.
And the work shall set you free.
Imagine the bulldozer.
Imagine yourself doing what had to be done.

Take a taxi into town.
Find a cafe that serves strong coffee and sells Virginia cigarettes.
Look at these people ladling liver noodle soup to their mouths.
Study their pasty cheeks, their puffed knuckles,
their darting eyes.
Listen to the headless beer go down all around you.
The ones whose backs are tumed
know that you are watching.
Rehearse all of the words
in English, in German
that night he recited.
Push aside the coffee.
Order expensive brandy.
Wm it in your looked hands.
Swirl it around your tongue.
Inhale through your teeth as you swallow.
It will burn.
Let it.

92

Hearing it on the Radio

The report is of

a pre-school field trip.
A youngster,

forgotten in a van,
suffocated in the heat

of a closed garage.
Question marks form

on the eyebrows of

my five year old son.
"Why didn't they count off?
When.we take a field trip
on the bus,

our teachers

make us count off

when we get there.

They should have

counted off!“

He wriggles arms first
into his batman pajama top.
His clothes from.the day
lie about on the floor

93

like molted snakeskins.

I supervise

the scrubbing of his teeth,
work the brush up and down
pointing at the gums,
aiming at the plaque .

Together we read

the continuing tale

of Buffalo Bill

on the plains

at age eleven

doing a man's job.
Caught tonight

in a stampede,

Bill's legs are pinned
by buffalo tonnage.
Unable to move,

he rides out the surge
astride his silver mule.
As I read the words,
aw son's legs pound
up and down

on the carpet.

94

"Did he fall?

Is Buffalo Bill okay?"

Yes, I reassure him,
Buffalo Bill's okay
and we mark the page
and turn down

the bedcovers and
have our good night

kisses.

”Papa,“ he says when
the light clicks out of the room,
"Why didn't they

count off?"

95

Obits on File at the Wildlife Desk

CHEETAH
Black parentheses around
your nostrils, mouth, whiskers.

CMON LOON
Red-eyed papa taking his turn
at sitting on the guarded eggs.

BELUGK

Squeaking through ice floes
like a coalminer's last canary.

FLORIDA PANTHER
Surprise in the Everglades ,

blood wan as rust.

ORLNG
Cheek pads , throat pouch-

wildest man in Borneo.

max-room FERRET
Bandit on the prairie, cautious
as twilight claim-jumpers .

96

HHOOPINO CRANE
Knees lmobby as Kareem's,
a Virginia Reel in the morning wetlands.

TIMBER WOLF
Black nosedot in the steam cloud
you puff up at the Dog Star.

RING-TAILED MR
Raccoon of a primate scoring
in a University of Madagascar rugby shirt.

SPOTTED TURTLE
Jackson Pollock's yellow paintpot,
your fossil-dark carapace.

ELEPHANT
Acacia ranges, dik-diks in the matted grass,

trunk questioning the property values.

97

Cleaning‘My'Room

I cleaned my room up yesterday

and straightened out my crayon box,
I put each dinosaur away

and organized my rocks;

I rearranged each dresser drawer,
put back my puzzles on their shelf,
I picked my clothes up off the floor
then dusted all by myself.

But when I climbed up into bed
with Bruno Bear and my wooden men,
I couldn't believe what Mama said:

that next week I'll have to clean again.

98

Homemade Baking Powder

'rwo PARTS

played by the two of us
our lines learned off by heart

great aunties coughing in the pews
youinthatsweepofadresslinay
eagernesstotakeyouupandbothofus

in our own voices saying our vows to each other

CREAM” mm

ONE

inthsangelfoodcake
Iwhipupmyourbirtlday

egg whites whisked into stiff peaks

that become golden crags inthebaking
tbepanhunguptocoolontheneckofan
empty bottle of lager we have used for toasting
PARTSODA

inthefruitpunch

wcousin'swifehauisyou

on our first visit to the relatives
ontheEastCoastanlyou sisethelup
withaneyeonneasifthatexplainsthings
youthegirlfrontheoreatLakesItheboyoftheocean

99

ONE PART

down the left side of our son's

unrulyhairthisnorningasyoudress

him and help look for his favorite socks

whileIneasureouttheflourforpancakesand

place gradeAdarkaabermaple syruponthetable

whereourdaughternitsDodeDuckforkalreadyinhand
C(RNSTARCR

worked into a little butter

is how I've learned to thicken

stews or rescue the Thanksgiving gravy

bubbling on the range like Pilgrim memories

of New England winters so cold in the foot and

the hand that eiderdowns must match the tea coaies
SIFT MOE

through the desk drawer

the red envelope in the packet

with the Hogdiliani line drawing an!

the hurried script that faint residue of perfume

still clinging to it as we clinged to each other then

in that year when air mail promises whistled back and forth

LOO

STORE IN A MASON JAR
all that you want preserved
Sumac trees in their first blush
or American Elms before the blight
afternoon mist over the Arno in March
or Cape May with the sound of our children:
everyduaplingandbiscuitwillfind itswayhone.

101

Cave‘with.Stone
(for Jean.Hather)
"The dead man came out, his feet and
hands bound with bands of stuff and a
cloth around his face. Jesus said to
then, 'Unbind him, let him go free.”

-John 11:“4

Others rolled the stone away,

Pressed their nostrils into the creases of their elbows
At the gush of fetid air,

Broke fingernails as they urged their

Frightened lizard hands on across dumb rock.

Others gathered up loose folds from their garments ,
Twisted them into knots against their thighs,

Their unthinking fingers pulling, kneading

Forming and reforming the pliant cloth.

Others stood scraping between their teeth

Loose stranis of matted hair,

Chewing a clump of beard sprouting from beneath the lip,
Or stood rolling between the toes the sand and grit

From a day of stoop-shouldered hurrying
In shadowed streets past market stalls and low cafes.

Iheardthem

echoing again. again
bone against bone ,

102

the words of command

like abrupt hammerblows

on my darkening cheeks.

I quickened to hear

the scrape of my own flesh,
a pustular dungheap
arching its back in a

cold instinct

of nerves and fibers.

Far off I heard

a separate, other scuffling
and strained,

an anxious dog alone with fire,
to hear their yelps and.whimpers.
Before I fully caught

their cries

in my cocked, but clotted ears,
I felt one touch.

Before my eyes

could open to the day‘s blame
I sensed a breath

at my temples,
felt a nose flatten

103

against the damp and yellowing
linen that hid my face.

Someone took my limp hands,
crossed at the wrist, aching
and cupped them slowly

bone against bone,

moved each stiff finger,
massaged each joint,

bent back my thumbs

into the pain of motion.

Before the strips of cloth

were all undone,

someone's seeded tears

' uncaked the white crust

from my eyes.

:I felt a pair of strong hands
unwrap m cramped, stinking legs
from.their glue of excrement and sweat
and slowly, under the steam

of my own breath

I felt the cloth being peeled back
frau my festering face.

Before my pupils dilated

I saw a single face

hover to kiss my rattling lips.

101+

Birth Rite: 8:33 p.m.

braided like Bramante's columns

in the altar canopy of St. Peter's,
your marbled cord still pulses as if
blood were everything

even after you surface, draw first air

I can feel those messages between my fingers:
the beating of the tom toms

the Jerking of the line

a clamp, a cut
your flesh gives before my scissored hand

as even granite gives
under the proper chisel

I place you at your mother's breast

watch colostrum trickle from your lips

rub away the patina of vernix on your skin
quicken to the first thrummings of your heart

105

Margaret

I am to be a flower strewer in Mary's Procession and
I am not allowed to miss practice a single morning.
All this month my father is first up

Scrubbing his stubbled face with the soapblock while
The darkness learns to seep away.

He pours I? buttermilk,

Breaks apart the scenes for me
AsIbrushmyhairintheovalmirror

That hangs over our washbasin.

With his square thumb he pushes aside w bangs

And then together we sit to eat in low whispers
lest we wake the others.

The dew collects on our shoetops in Crawley' s field.

We are walking at our usual pace, my father starting out fast,

Both of us detemined to be at St. Columban's before the sun is there.
Hereuembers thatIhavetowalk, thenrun

Walk, thenruntokeepupwithhimand

He slows, holds w hand

And swings his other arm in a fine figure eight.

Myhandfits insidehisandIamglad

for the warmth of his fingers.

106

He never forgets about kissing me good-bye,

But today he holds my face in his hands

A moment longer before touching his lips to my forehead.
“One more week, Margaret.‘I

We both smile and I think of him.and my mother,

How they will watch.me

As I walk with my back so straight

And my eyes straight ahead, strewing

Flowers for the Holy Virgin.

His hand rests just another moment on.my head, then
Off he hurries to catch his tram.

In half an hour one of the nuns will be coming out to spam
The gate in the iron railing fence that rings the convent.
Until she lets me in

I wait on the stone steps

And listen to their morning prayers through the chapel window.
I can still see aw father's wide back,

His canvas jacket snapping with each of his steps,

His tweed cap pulled close to his ears.

When he gets farther and farther away

I have to strain, my chin tight against.my knees,

To see how he swings both arms at his sides

While he walks.

107

All the Bells

"The Renaissance takes the field again during
an annual reenactment in Florence of the city's
ostentatious gesture in 1530, while under siege
by the forces of Charles V. Florentine citizens
so scorned their attackers that they played a
game of calcio--Florentine football--in clear
view of the enemy, encamped on nearby hills.“

--from a 1951 National Geographic

The waiter paid for
our bottle of Brunello
and then walked us
outside.

Facing

the Ponte San Niccolo,
he embraced

first me.

then you.

It was going on

half past nine.

we kissed

leaning up against
an Alpine green Fiat.
The lights went out.

All the lights.

108

The church bells rang.
All the bells.

Torches appeared

on the Bargello,

on the Palazzo‘Vecchio.
Florentines in armor
clattered into the street.
Costumed horsemen

came out of courtyards.
Archers, footsoldiers, drummers
marched through

the gathering crowd.

At the Piazza della Signoria
the families of Florence
drew up in squads of

their own colors.

Over the Arno

burst firework escutcheons.
The bells again.

All we knew
of the Gioco del Calcio
was our own green kiss

and the promise to wed.