THESiS

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

FIRST FRUITS

presented by

Mary McInnis Roessier

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M.A. Engiish

degree in

 

Dim/Mg

Major professor

Date May 13, 1983

Ov7639

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90.

FIRST FRUIT

By

Mary McInnis Roessler

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

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1983

ABSTRACT

FIRST FRUIT
By

Mary McInnis Roessler

This thesis is a series of free verse poems and prose-poems which are
largely narrative in nature. There are three sections: the first, "In

' contains four poems which relate to the struggle

Search of Real Toads,‘
of writing poetry; the second, "First Fruit," contains twenty—two poems
which explore the author's relationships and experiences with family and
friends; the last, "Entering the Brown," is composed of fifteen English-

Spanish poems which stem from the poet's travel in Mexico and her experiences

as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION I: IN SEARCH OF REAL TOADS
For Diane
In Search of Real Toads
Memo to Myself While in Search of a Dazzling Metaphor
Gold Is Where You Find It

SECTION II: FIRST FRUIT

 

Change of Life

The New Adam and Eve

For My Husband on Our Tenth Anniversary
Mother and Daughter

First Fruit

Evening Marauders

Thank You Note

My Father Wonders Why

First Snowfall #1

First Snowfall #2

Adult Basic Ed.

Apple Evenings

Going to the Spring Fling

For Frank

Jimmy T., I Love You

Portrait of a Nun in a Garden
Romance

Photograph

Winter Lover

Happily Ever After

In Response to a Request for Inspiration
For Ron, Mike, and Jeff

SECTION III: ENTERING THE BROWN

 

Oh Sergio, What Is the Meaning of Life
Cruzando la Frontera

Guaymas l A.M.

Early Morning Mazatldn

E1 Futuro de Mazatlah es el Turismo
Teotihuacdh

Bogotd Arrival

The First Days

Entering the Brown

Primer Apartamento

Dia de Mercado

Travelling by Bus in Colombia

Go Home Dog

La Cumbia

Volviéhdome Colombians

UIUJNH

10
12
14
15
17
18
19
20
23
25
27
28
3O
31
34
35
37
38
40

41
42
43
44
46
47
48
49
50
52
54
S6
58
6O
62

IN SEARCH OF REAL TOADS

FOR DIANE (who always demands more of
me than I think I can give)

Sheepish,
I bring you
my bituminous

lump.
You are not satisfied.

Later
I offer anthracite.

Still you frown,

always

slyly
knowing
someday

I may present
you

with another
diamond

for your
crown.

IN SEARCH OF REAL TOADS

I search for you today,
knowing you must be there
hidden like a family secret
in some forgotten closet

of my mind,

awaiting my discovery
untouched, pristine

as early snow.

I search my past

as a ferret sniffs his way

in the gloom of a rabbit warren
at night,

seeking some sound,

some scent

which will recall

your presence.

My memory,

stingy as an unregenerate Scrooge,
yields nothing.

I search my imagination,
hoping to find a garden
luxuriant with tiger lilies
and toads,

but my muse is barren

and silent as a moon.

I search again

until my child appears,
eager for a story.
Setting aside

my still empty notebook,
I go to her and find you.

MEMO TO MYSLEF WHILE IN SEARCH OF
A DAZZLING METAPHOR

Dearie--

Your thoughts

are like stale vapors
which have been trapped
beneath layers of quilts
since 2 A.M.

in the upstairs bedroom
of an old farmhouse

in winter

where the cool morning air
is as pristine as

a new baby's bottom

until someone lifts the covers.

Your brain needs fresh air
and exercise.

Why not journey

across the dark continent
of Sexton's metaphors
where the muses are mad
and God wins at poker?
Do you dare?

Or spend a night barhopping

with Bukowski.

You'll

laugh your ass off

get loaded

get laid

then wake up

with bad breath

and a magnolia between your teeth.

Or struggle once again
up Mt. Diane*
where unsolved riddles
still can make you cry
and to gasp is
to begin to understand.

She has severals peaks
but all the paths lead up.

What do you say, dearie?

Why not

climb a mountain

with a magnolia in your mouth?
The mad muse may teach you

to dazzle the world.

*Thank you, K.B.

GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

I sit at a student's desk after school and try to write.
Nothing comes.
I hear the cheerleaders practicing in the hall.
Claps, chants and a little all-American ass
for the hometown fans.

(God--and I used to be one.)
The desk I am sitting at has been painstakingly
embellished with a drawing of a gigantic spider web,
complete with two spiders and a couple of dead bugs.
On the right,
with an accusing arrow pointed in its direction,
is written,
"This is the stupidisk ass thing I ever seen."

(I hope one of my Comp. students didn't write that.)
On the left,
in impeccable print,
"Jim Yager sucks."
And 46

.42

86 (Well, at least they can add.)
My eyes wander across the room to the "No-nos".

Stupid--Instead try obtuse, dulldwitted, dense,
addlebrained or bovine.
(Mrs. Roessler, my students tell me,
this is very bovine.)

Gross--Instead try vulgar, crude, disgusting,
nauseating or repulsive.
(Mrs. Roessler, you are repulsive.)

A poster leers at me from the front of the room:
"Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits."
The flourescent lights flicker.

The janitor comes in to sweep the floor.

I decide not to "just sit" any longer,

pick up my papers

and walk out.

(There's no way I can write a poem in this place tonight.)

FIRST FRUIT

CHANGE OF LIFE

Last year my husband was a teacher and a photographer.
He spent his time
correcting papers
making lesson plans
and figuring out new schemes to avoid
water-spotted film.
He worried about
transescent children
principal evaluations
his hair length
and whether or not his Career Ed. company would
be allowed to sell "Woodies"
(chocolate sundaes named after Brenda
Woodman--her idea)
during one lunch hour or two.
He agonized over muddy prints and trite images,
sunny days were his nemesis,
and he spoke educationese.

This year is different. He is a football coach.
He now spends his time
practicing football
playing football
discussing football
and watching football on T.V. (Go Blue!)
He wakes up nights, steals down to the family room and
makes cryptic notes on new plays to teach his teams.
He is obsessed by
weak middle linebackers
inadvertant whistles
and winning.
He curses the rain.
And he has taken to wearing Adidas.

I wonder what he will become next year.

THE NEW ADAM AND EVE

Like a dentist

tapping in swift, assiduous strokes

on white enamel,

he types out

gosubs, peeks, and pokes

on his APPLE.
(Unlike Hal
the APPLE is docile and obedient,
its subversive activities
limited to occasionally
devouring programs
meant for public rather than
machine consumption.)

The APPLE

and its beige

color-co-ordinated

monitor

pose like mini-monarchs

on the ornate oak table

which has replaced the knotty-pine bed

and musty mattress

where guests used to sleep.

I sit twenty feet away

in the bedroom

reading Levertov,

pause to listen to his

woodpecker fingers.

They rest from time to time

and lift a beer,

rest while he ponders the monitor,
scanning each line for a miscue,
then return abruptly to work.

I return to my book.

A smug smile slips

between my teeth and into my brain
because I know that

later

those same fingers

will not belong

to the beer can

or to the APPLE

but to me.

FOR MY HUSBAND ON OUR TENTH ANNIVERSARY
(on the night when you're at that
"lousy Planning Commission meeting"
and I'm at that
"damn poetry class.")

I wonder tonight

if you have ever regretted
the influence of those
Singapore Slings

you drank that evening before
you proposed;

you could not have known then
that you were getting

a woman

who can't remember to turn
off the iron

or take meat out of the freezer
for dinner,

who refuses to change the
kitty litter

or shave her armpits in the winter,
a woman

who has a mania for

jogging through your

living room in cold weather
and who mends your clothes
only under duress.

Are you ever sorry?

Do you sometimes wish I had
Bo's body

Farrah's face
Golda's guts

or Margaret's mind?
Do you wish that I
hated

suntans and

poetry and

eating out

and loved

the stock market and
computers and
fishing?

Do you wish that I preferred
investment to

expenditure,

The New Republic to

Gourmet?

Are you tired of my always
wanting to lose

that same five pounds?
Have you had it with

my blow dryer

and

my interrup-

tions?

I know that

the answers must be

yes

but I know too

and I know that you know
that these

aren't

the important

questions.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

My daughter is having a bad morning.

She has a cold,

she woke up early,

and she wants to be held.

I try very calmly explaining to her

that mommy can't hold her right now

because she is busy trying to make herself look and

smell human once more.
(God, I hope I don't forget my deodorant again
today.)

She does not understand or, if she does,

she's pretending not to.

"Up!" she demands for the eleventh time.
(I've been counting them. Numbers help keep me
sane at moments like these.)

Finally, having done my best to disguise the ravages

of an almost sleepless night,

I pick her up.

She rubs a large glob of mucous,

which she seems to have been storing up

for this precise moment,

on my sweater.

Downstairs three minutes later

I have to put her down to make the coffee

and she chases me around the kitchen crying

"Up! Up!" (Twelve, thirteen.)

She grabs my leg like a strong defensive end

and plants another glob of mucous,

this one on my skirt.

I do not say,

"Poor child, you're sick and your nose is runny.

Let me wipe it dry.

Come, I'll hold you and comfort you."

Instead, between clenched teeth, I mutter, "Kate,

Goddamit, don't wipe you snotty nose on me again."

I make both of our breakfasts--fruit and granola.
I set the bowls on our kitchen table,

hoping the food will pacify her.

It does not.

She continues to cry.

10

She is pulling on the tablecloth which I have taped down
(cleverly preparing for an emergency such as this.)

I hope the tape holds.

I shovel my granola more fiercely into my mouth

and finish breakfast in record time.

Shortly afterward when I have a moment to relax

with a second cup of coffee,

I hold her in my arms

and she falls asleep.

11

FIRST FRUIT

Her small hand opens

like a flower

to scatter seeds

in rows which lie

narrow and straight

as strings on the violin

her grandfather used to play.
She hums the tune he taught her
and studies

scholarlike

the movements of the hoe

as he fills in each

seeded furrow,

then tamps the earth

with patient hands.

Together

they spray rainbows

till the soil is moist.

Later

her fingers explore the garden,
touching each plant

before uprooting the intruders.
Those left

she tells me

will grow

as large as our house

and bear fruit

the size of grandpa's cow.

One green afternoon in August
as I sit at the piano
playing Brahms,

she enters from the garden
with a sly smile

and a secret.

When I guess which hand,
she holds out to me

like a prize

her first tomato,

still summer-warm.

12

I accept the gift

and she prances out
unperturbed

that her tomato

is merely the size of
a tomato.

13

EVENING MARAUDERS

Out of the green twilight they come,

these evening marauders.

Galloping four-strong in search of

their fifth,

each carries her provisions for the night:
a quickly folded sleeping bag bulging

in odd spots,

a pillow,

a ragdoll with legs dancing as they run.

They swoop the neighborhood for plunder,
shrill and confident,
their voices strident flutes,
a continuous staccato of excitement.
Together in the near-darkness
they own the street,
command the sidewalk.
Each stop yields up a treasure:
chocolate bars
plums
an invitation to swim.

Later

inside the house,

their belongings heaped in careless piles,
a joyful jumble of shapes and colors,

they crowd about me,

clamoring gleefully for snacks.

It does no good to protest the hour.
Nothing is to be denied theme-

Tonight they sleep together.

14

THANK YOU NOTE

Dear Mother,

I know you've always wanted me to be polite.
Do you remember

at my bridal shower

when I received

that giant hollow chocolate

in the shape of a penis

and I said,

"Mother, this is a chocolate penis,"
and broke off one of the balls

and handed it to you and said,

"Have one,"

and you asked me,

"Did you say thank you, dear?"

And I know you've always wanted me to be tidy.
Do you remember

when I came home from college

my senior year

and finally worked up the courage
to confess to you

that I had let

my boyfriend

spend the night with me

and you said,

"I hope your room was clean."

And I know you've always wanted me to be punctual.
Do you remember ‘

that I didn't have a single tardy

in high school

until the counselor

finally contacted you

to ask that I not be sent to class

with a box of sugar corn pops and

without socks

and you said,

"But last year she had a perfect record,"
and he said,

"Lady, let her rest on her laurels."

15

And I know you've always wanted me
to take care of my body.

Do you remember

when I called to tell you

about the Phi Beta Kappa banquet
with the terrific speaker

who challenged by complacent intellect
and made me want to read
Kierkegaard and

Sartre and

understand the reality of existence
and you said,

"That's lovely, dear.

Did you eat your peas?"

So

I'm writing to say

I'm glad

that even though

I send thank you notes

only after several reminders and
my house suffers

from chronic grubbiness and

the last time

I was on time

was when your train was late and
I still don't eat

my peas .

you've never once

said you're disappointed.

16

HY FATHER WONDERS WHY

My father wonders why I am taking a poetry class.

To his mind poetry is one of Mankind's foolish vanities,
a waste of time which has little, if anything,

to do with "real life".

Rhymed iambic pentameter

full of obscure symbolism

meaning nothing

and engaged in by deranged women and homosexual men.

I tell him about my class.

He is suspicious.

"They all a bunch of weirdos, are they?"
I assure him this is not the case.

He is silent, but not convinced.

On the phone, I tell him I want to write a poem about
an early snowfall and ask how it would affect farm life.
He indulges me but is mystified when I ask for

specific details.

I can hear my mother open the kitchen door.

She has just taken Sam, their dog, for his morning walk
out to the back wheat field.

"Who's that?"

"It's your daughter. She's writing a poem."

I can hear the laughter in his voice.

It does not make sense to him.

When I finish the poem I shall give him a copy.

And he will ask, "This is poetry?"

And I will say, "Yes, I think so."

And he will fold it up and keep it in his drawer.

l7

FIRST SNOWFALL #1

"Well, it's here," was all he said when he came in
from the barn.

She hadn't looked out since getting up,

had preferred instead to busy herself with the bacon
and coffee and thick corn mush with molasses

she always prepared for him on cold mornings.

She made excuses for not confronting the windows—
she usually took joy in looking out,

in watching the seasons pass

through the changes in the mountain ash

by the barn. .
This morning she pretended that there was not time,
and squeezed fresh orange juice to make sure.

"The corn's lodged already," he added.

"Eleven inches and heavy wind.

The apples'll turn to mush for sure now.

And no getting in that last cutting of hay.

I'll call Ben and tell him he'd best not come today.
No tractor could get through that."

She poured his coffee and filled his bowl with
the yellow porridge.
"One egg or two?"

This was the second year the snow had come early.
It was said that if you were a good farmer
you could survive two had years in a row.

"I'll go to the bank today," he said.
"Maybe with another loan." His voice trailed off.

Grease from the frying pan spattered her face.
"Oh God," was all she said.

18

FIRST SNOWFALL #2

All morning

there are urgent buzzes,

noses flattened white against
putty-edged rectangles of glass.

Geography:

The earth rotates on its axis at a
twenty-three and one-half degree tilt.
Over fifty percent of the countries in
the world have an annual GNP of less than
one hundred dollars.

Roundly earnest blue eyes
yearn to flee the pages,
purloin furtive glimpses
of the grey-white sky,
return to their task.

Language Arts:

T-h-e-r-e is a location;
T-h-e-i-r shows possession;
T-h-e-y-'-r-e is a contraction.

Scuffed leather shoes shuffle, restive.
Desks open and close.

A child sneezes.

Suddenly a tremulous flurry of voices:

Now! Now! Look! It's started!
Oh, look, look!
Oh, look!

The lesson is suspended.
Outside

billions of thick flakes
float

whitely

to

earth.

l9

ADULT BASIC ED.

We cluster together

'like grapes,

‘ squeeze tightly,

hoping for wine.

But this group is used to vinegar.

Floyd's face is shaggy, his hair a scrub brush.
He has teeth like a cow and he talks too much.
He suffered brain injury as a child.

He is unemployed, and his wife calls him Dopey.

Tonight, Floyd tells me, he is sure he can do it.
He has practiced all week.
He is certain he knows the difference between did and the.

Great, Floyd! Let's see.

He hands me worn flash cards printed in large red letters.

I hold one up.

His brow lowers, his eyes narrow as if squinting at the sun.
After a few seconds, he says slowly d-i-d.

Floyd! That's terrific!

He smiles slyly through yellow teeth.
'We try again and again and again.
The fifth time he misses.

Sonny is round, and bald at thirty-five.

He used to drink and raise hell but lately he has found God.
Now he worships with the same boisterous passion that he
brought to his drinking.

Sonny prays to lose weight, his wife to stop smoking.

He tells stories like a balladeer and he can fix anything.
What he cannot do is read.

He tries to sound out words by saying each letter very
loudly:
T! I! M! E!

he almost shouts, but the letters refuse to yield up
their secrets.
He tries again, then guesses, Tommy!

20

Almost, Sonny.
It's time. Remember about silent "e".
He nods, retreats to a corner to practice finding ig.

Dick is quiet and intense.

He is built like a nose guard, but his back is bad.
This is the third time he has worked up the nerve to
return to night school.

His eyes become hard, his hands knot beneath the table
when he starts to read.

Tonight he has brought a book with him.
It is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.
With only a little help he reads one page, then another.

 

Floyd and Sonny applaud.
Dick shifts in his chair, reads a third page.

Dick, that's wonderful!

Beneath his thick heard there is a shy smile, but he puts
the book in a sack before he leaves.

There are others: Irene, overweight and afraid of numbers;
Judy, divorced, living on ADC--each week she has a new dream;
A1, walrus-like, writing stories about his youth.

And others.

Twice a week from 7:00 to 10:00 we meet in a house trailer,
our "portable classroom", behind the high school.

I provide cookies; Sonny, coffee.

Together we eat, drink, and struggle.

After my daughter is born, I bring in a whole roll of

colored pictures of her.

She is six weeks old and looks like an infant, bald and soft.
They assure me she is beautiful.

Sonny's wife, who is still smoking, crochets her a blanket.

It is her first attempt and one side is longer than the other.

At the end of the year, we picnic together in my backyard.

The wives and husbands and children attend.
We all eat too much and Floyd will not stop talking.

21

In September I find a full-time job.

None of the people who were in the A.B.E. program when
I taught it finish the following year.

Floyd and Sonny and Dick still can't read.

I'm not sure how much it matters.

I think perhaps it was I who profitted most from our
time together.

22

APPLE EVENINGS

Eight autumns ago
I taught English to the migrants
who worked in Nelson's orchard.
I would arrive
September evenings at dusk
after they had spent all day
with the apples--
picking, sorting, crating, hauling
Cortlands, Spies and Johnnies, Macs.
We met in a barren room
which held a table
a few chairs
and an erratic stove;
Above us, a sixtydwatt moon.

Mostly men, .
the workers would arriv
often late

fresh from supper

or a nap--

or from a bath,

their hair still wet,
slicked back,

'with plans to go into town
after class

to drink

or find a woman.

Young men, good-natured,
with thoughts of cars
and travel--

soon to Texas.

Some spoke English fairly well;
others little.

In truth, it was the same;

they came for something to do,
to visit with each other

and with the big-bellied gringa,
more in Spanish than in English.

23

I was round and ripening
like an apple,
though mine would be January fruit.
After class
I would walk out into
apple-crisp evenings,
see the moon, apple-round and rosy,
smell the apple air,
and go home to hot cider
and my husband.

And they would walk
through that same apple-sweet air
to their shacks
their women
their liquor
and their dreams.

In October I received a call:
They were gone with no good-byes,
following their migratory pattern
like geese,
travelling in communal flocks
to the lemon-warm air of the South.

I stayed in the North,
awaiting my winter harvest.

24

GOING TO THE SPRING FLING

Are we more generous in the spring?
Are violets and robins

sly alchemists

who work upon

our tarnished winter spirits
converting them again

to generous gold?

Perhaps.

Perhaps there is that.
More likely though

it is the children's.
radiant eagerness:

"Oh yes! We want to go!
We've never been.

Oh yes! Oh yes!"

And knowing their mother cannot
afford to take them.

It is arranged by phone,
my husband's voice

like a young boy's
seeking his first date.

On Saturday they arrive early
in T-shirts

and jeans still damp

from the dryer.

At the carnival

we watch four children
instead of one:

they bob .

gay and bright as helium balloons
through the spacewalk

to the duck pond;

hearts and stars

blossom on their cheeks;

a jubilant cascade of Pepsi
redampens the jeans.

They tell others loudly,
"Kate's mom and dad paid our way!"

25

We lose in

the cakewalk and in
the raffle

for Preppie the Mouse.

"Okay, you guys,
two more tickets each,
and that's it!"

Chrissy encircles a milkcan
‘with a hula hoop

and wins her best prize:

a fuzzy rainbow pillow.

Wendy picks up another duck
from the pond

and walks away with a second watch.
Peewee shoves the truck again
and it stops in front of

the plastic spider rings.

His grin is larger than he is.

Later

leaving us, they chorus,
"Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you!"
And

in the still cool
spring twilight,
we glisten.

26

FOR FRANK

Old Frank Davenport came to look at
our furnace today.
He spent an hour with us
even though he's supposed to be retired,
told us,
"This furnace was a good one when she
was built.
She ain't too bad now."
took apart the motor
oiled it
fixed the fan
spoke about the advantages and disadvantages
of woodstoves and
forced-air heat.

It was hard for him to talk.
"Had a stroke.
But besides that and diabetis and
bad circulation, I ain't doin'
too bad."

He chuckled.

"Do you want us to pay you now or will
you send us a bill?"

my husband asked.

"Don't matter, but if you've got
three dollars, I'll take it now."

We made him take five, though he protested.

27

JIMMY T., I LOVE YOU

Jimmy T. was born

eighty-eight years ago in WOodland,
the town where he lives today.

He is smooth and bent now

as the silver spoon

with which he stirs his Sanka.

We sit together in his kitchen
with coffee

and sugar donuts which he has bought
for the occasion.

I admire his placemats,

laminated Christmas-card collages
made by the Senior Citizens,

each one

one of a kind.

He tells me stories

of when he was a young man:

he refused to marry

the first woman he loved

when she confessed to him that

she was not a virgin (though he does not
used that word).

At unexpected moments his eyes fill
with tears;

his voice rusts.

He shows me old photographs
of WOodland:

A.J. Smith when he was postman
with a horse and wagon,
carrying the Christmas mail;

two Richardson ladies

wearing long dresses and blurry smiles,
outside, making apple butter

in a giant kettle;

a gathering downtown

of people come to listen to

a re-election campaign speech
of Michigan Governor Ferris;

28

the first pet parade with children
and their animals, including
roosters, turtles, and guinea pigs;

all of Woodland's returning
Civil War Veterans; there were
twenty-three.

I make copies of these photos
to put in a book
and take a picture of him as well.

I leave later than I should.
He kisses me good-bye,

still talking.

I squeeze out the door,
clutching my little piece
of history.

His voice

resonant as antique crystal
lingers in my ears

as I hurry through the snow
to my car.

29

PORTRAIT OF A NUN IN A GARDEN

On this cool summer evening

we find you in the garden,

your broad body bent over

a row of dahlias

like a concerned mother,

muttering tersely in Hungarian

as your fingers ferret out

crabgrass and chickweed.

Your hands are at home with the soil,
your eyes touch every bloom.

You pinch seeds from the dry blossoms

of the columbine,

give them to me

along wdth others you have gleaned today:
delphinia, marigold, coxcomb.

You tell me when to plant,

in fall or spring,

then pick peonies and iris

to fill my daughter's arms.

We leave the garden with the sun.
As you pass,

the flowers ripple and

bend in the breeze.

3O

ROMANCE

When I was thirteen

and had just seen "Gone With the Wind"
and my hormones were caught in overdrive,
I met a short blond kid

with eyes as deep as Lake Superior

and I immediately jumped in.

"Where you from," I asked,

getting right to the point.

"Copper country," he said.

He had a funny Finnish accent

which charmed me.

"What's your name?"

"Just call me Ladd."

Of course I should have known

right then and there

that any boy who calls himself lad
is not to be trusted,

but I didn't.

Ladd, whose first name was Donnie,
spent summers with his aunt and uncle
who lived near us.

He was buddies with my brother, Jim,
and was often at our house.

I tried various methods

to attract his attention.

For a while

I took to applying Vaseline

to my face,

then covering it with powder
because I found this gave me

a glamorous tan complexion.

This continued until one day
when I entered the kitchen after
my morning toilette

and Jim looked up from a large bowl of
neapolitan ice cream and said,
"You'd better see a doctor.

Your face is orange."

31

I tried other methods as well-7

such as shaving my legs,

plucking my eyebrows,

and telling Donnie how much I hated him--
but none of these worked either.

I felt like a fisherman

dangling an underweight worm

in front of a Northern pike

that had just lunched

on a sizable and succulent trout.

Then something happened which was
as unexpected as a sad ending

in a Doris Day movie.

For reasons

which I didn't question then

and haven't figured out since,
one night

for maybe fifteen minutes

in our treehouse

with my brother

and several neighborhood friends present,
Donnie held my hand.

I didn't dare look at him

and we didn't speak to each other
the whole time,

but joked with the others

as though holding hands

were as normal

as Friday night movies

or corn flakes for breakfast.

I developed an aggravated case of
sweaty palms,

but I held tight anyway

for fear he might lose interest

if I loosed my grip to dry them.

After a while

he and Jim ran off to dig nightcrawlers
in their secret place

and wouldn't let any girls tag along.

I didn't care.

I had things to think about,

such as when Donnie might kiss me
and how he might propose.

32

Donnie never held my hand again
despite its eager availability and,
through my elaborate nocturnal maneuverings,
its conspicuous proximity to his own.
A couple of years later

his summer visits ceased

as suddenly and inexplicably

as his handholding.

My first brush with romance was over,
but the effects remain.

My palms still sweat when I hold hands
and even now

I have a weakness for lads

with Lake Superior eyes.

33

PHOTOGRAPH

I see you

drinking the beer I bought you
your hands raising the glass
to your lips

again and again

until you are touching
me

with your hands and

your lips

again and again

and there is not enough
time

for drinking or touching
and afterwards we are
like some poorly exposed
photograph

blurry and underdeveloped
and I wonder

as I see you

again and again

if we are worth keeping
or if

like that photo

we

should be discarded.

34

WINTER LOVER

Once a year and always in the snow
you leave your land
and travel to the city.
You come to me
beard trimmed
smelling of lavender.
(I wonder if the fragrance is your
wife's, but I do not ask.
You never say.)
One question I do permit myself:
Why do you come only in the cold?
You tell me:
The winter wheat is safe
beneath the snow.
I know your firewood is piled
high and neat,
cords of ash and oak and apple
cut from timber in your woods,
purchased by your labor to warm
the frozen night.
The fire's my companion, you have
said.
(This gives me hope.)

Always
before you come
you send me word.
The message is the same:
One week from now.
Four words which pierce
like silver blades
and pare away all else in life
but thoughts of you.
Each year I keep your letter.
I have a small packet of them now
tied with ribbon
and fragrant with sachet.

You bring me gifts,

last year a brooch,
this year some amber beads.

35

They're very old, you say,
made of ancient resin.
They carry fossils thousands of
years old.
You show me one--
a tiny insect
caught while trying to escape.
You place the chain around my neck
with hands which know
the secrets of my body.
I blossom in them like your
wheat in spring.
We touch. We touch.
You look at me just so.
I lose myself within your amber eyes.

Is it time, you whisper.

Oh yes. I'll light a candle.
Silent as snow you follow me.
The fire hisses after us.

And then all else is silence
till you moan.

36

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

An acquaintance of mine,

an artist who creates
angular mysteries

with water colors,

recently moved

to California

where she resides

with her husband

in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar
house

customrfurnished

in earth tones

and tastefully decorated-
understatement is the key--
with moderately priced
"objets d'art".

Both dress

in designer clothes

and have grown

fashionably thin

eating wheat germ and yogurt.
And last spring

for only eight hundred dollars
her slender legs

were purged of

cellulite.

She and her husband
live contentedly alone
with their Burmese cat
and a part-time maid
making plans to buy

a more expensive house
which, they explain,
they are fortunate enough
to be able to afford
because they have no
children.

37

IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST FOR INSPIRATION

You have asked me to inspire you.
What can I say?

Shall I tell you of my friend
who is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease
at thirty-five,

how she laughs as her muscles
turn as soft as a fish's belly,
how she

writes letters

takes trips

visits friends

and worries about her husband
who can't cope?

She cries when he's asleep.
Perhaps she's wrong.

Shall I tell you of my aunt
who has lived by herself

for sixty years

and fills her life with books
and photographs of places she has been,
who is alone

with her bad heart

but knows that next year

she will see the Bahamas if
she saves a few more coupons
and gives used paperbacks

at Christmas?

She cannot hold a conversation,
for muttering to herself,

and she's quick to fuss at
children when they're loud.

Shall I tell you of my grandmother
who has helped

two daughters

a son

her husband

and a brother

to die,

38

who drinks her tea strong and

still dares to read her future

in the leaves,

who, at eighty, walks three miles a day
bakes bread

and teaches her great-grandchildren

the mysteries of the pudding stone?
She's cranky with clerks

and sometimes wets the bed.

There is no inspiration in this,
you say?

Perhaps you're right.

So I tell you to look elsewhere
for your inspiration.

Don't look to me.

I have none to give.

39

FOR RON, MIKE, AND JEFF

Cupped in life's hands

like fresh spring rain,

you slipped too soon
between her careless fingers
into other hands

which one day

will cradle each of us

as well.

We were not ready to lose you.
We grieve.

We grieve
for we loved you.

We grieve
for what you might have become
that now is lost to us.

And we mourn for each other,
for those suddenly arid places
in our lives

that you refreshed and nurtured
with your presence.

Our only consolation
is that, for a while,
you were among us.

Even in brittle winter

we can rejoice in thoughts
of fresh spring rain.

40

ENTERING THE BROWN

OH SERGIO, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?

Half my life ago, back when I was twenty and had more
time and energy and metaphysical inclinations than I do
now, I earnestly sought the answer to such basic cosmic
questions as: What is the meaning of life?

I was having trouble finding the answers.

The summer before I had been in Mexico, practicing
Spanish and falling in love with my roommate's novio
after my roommate returned to Michigan.

The young man's name was Sergio.

Sergio was short, dark, and flaco.

I outweighed him by at least twenty pounds.
Nevertheless, we got on.

Sergio, like many Mexicans, was poetically inclined, and
talking with him in my faltering Spanish over cafes or
refrescos while gazing into his dark, tragic eyes was
almost more than my romantic little soul could bear.

Of course, my incomprehension of at least half of what
he said contributed deliciously to Sergio's mystery and
appeal.

When we separated late that summer, we promised to write

and I sniffled during much of the three day train trip
from.Mexico City back to Chicago. Feeling the need, as

I often did then, to impress my boyfriends with my spiritual
depth, I wrote to Sergio on the eve of my twentieth
birthday, at which age, it seemed to me, I should surely

be able to answer all the essential questions of life.

I wanted him to share in my search.

"Oh Sergio," I asked, "Sergio, qué'significa la vida?"

A week later I received a letter from Sergio in.which he
obligingly and glibly answered my question.

I don't remember what he said and I have long since thrown
away his letter, though I wish I hadn't because it would
be a kind of archeological key to my past self.

I ponder smaller questions now: What color should we

paint the bathroom trim? Whose turn is it to change the
kitty litter? I live with my husband and daughter, I teach,
and I struggle to write an occasional poem. .I no longer
wonder about the meaning of life.

41

CRUZANDO LA FRONTERA

At the frontera in Nogales
there is a sign
announcing our arrival in Mexico:
a small, greydwhite metal rectangle,
rusting at the bolts,
black lettering
which could as easily say,
"Do not pass," or
"Watch for falling rocks."
It is irrelevant: the real harbingers
are hidden in the air.

Outside a shack

a brown woman with a thick black braid
waist long

stands patting a lump of dough

in quick, rhythmic movements.

I see her at an Aztec market
dressed in white.
Her artful fingers
turn the little corn cakes
which she sells to
customers in the marketplace,
trades for feathers--
or, if she is clever,
a jade bead.
Her mouth opens like a sunflower
but instead of Nahuatl
I hear Spanish:

"Hijo! Rafael! Vente pa'ca!"
A black-eyed squirrel of a child
scurries to her side.

The smell of unleavened corn cakes
baking over a fire,

the staccato ripple of another tongue,
obsidian eyes,

faces chiselled from ancient stone.

Quetzalcoatl endures.
Suddenly the air is full of feathers.

42

GUAYMAS 1 A;M.

"Un hotel barato,"

we tell the taxista.

"Muy bien," he tells us.

"I know a good cheap one."
His cab smells of tortillas.
Through static

mariachis croon "Cucurrucucu, Paloma";
the taxista hums along.

We reach the hotel and

ask the taxista to wait.
Someone shows us through the place,
which looks vaguely like

an open-air mortuary.
Outside again

we tell the taxista,

"No nos gusts."

He is incensed

and refuses to take us
anywhere

but back to the bus station.
The mariachis sing alone now.
We lurch into the main plaza
where another taxista

who knows of another

good cheap one

picks us up.

We spend the night

in a room

with cracked maroon walls
soapy grey sheets

and a resident lizard.

It's not good

but it's cheap.

43

EARLY MORNING MAZATLAN

Arriving
two A.M.
in a tropical
niagara of rain,
calling the pensidh,
(Si, seflbra, coma no, 103 espero.)
finding a cab,
knowing we will pay what is asked.
Through the streets,
glittering puzzles of red and green,
kettledrums overhead,
our clothes leaking
into small, dark puddles
on the unreceptive vinyl,
our bodies,
still new to each other,
meeting in damp contentment
at elbow and thigh.

At the pensidn

a dark young woman

receives us,

gracious in a flowered robe,
offers a key

without asking our name.

Together in the wrought iron bed,
the mattress troughing the middle,
we sleep still entangled.

The rain, still like tambores,
orchestrates our dreams,

quieting only at sunrise,

replaced by a noisy urban cock
which surprises us from sleep.

Next door

the panaderos bake bolillos
which we will buy

crusty warm

to accompany our morning
cafe’ con leche .

44

But that will be later.
For now

in the torpid dawn
comfortable with yeast,
the cock's crow intermittent,
receding,

softly

softly

for now

softly

softly

we sleep.

45

EL FUTURO DE MAZATLAN ES EL TURISMO

The signs are everywhere:

"E1 futuro de Mazatlah es el turismo."
And a more direct admonition:

"Sean amables con los turistas."

Immediately
I imagine the mayor
as a large maternal figure
patting each citizen
on the head
as he rushes out of the house
in the morning
and reminding him
in the dulcet tones
of a mother
concerned not only about
her child's well-being
but also
about his proper department:
"Good-bye honey.
Have a good day.
And remember dear,
be nice to the tourists."

46

TEOTIHUACAN

Long ago
before the Aztecs
before the Toltecs

you arose
when there was sand and
there was water

you became
built up of blood and
built up of sinew

pyramids
you are e1 sol and
you are la luna

you endure
who were your makers
who your creators

pyramids
you guard their secret
in your stone stillness

evermore
we cannot know them
they are forgotten

still you endure

your plumes and serpents
your steps toward heaven
lead us back

to times of feathers

of blood and sinew

long ago

47

BOGOTA ARRIVAL

Flying low

over the Andes

down into the
turbulent black tunnel
of the Cordillera Oriental,
landing

several hours late,
passing quickly
through la aduana,

we are taken

at 2 A.M.

to our hotel.

It is not remarkable.
The building

is a rectangular box
with a lobby
restaurants

elevators

room keys

beds with nubby bedspreads
venetian blinds
telephones

and running water.

I am unimpressed.

I sleep until late

the next morning,

arise

to the noise of busses
and cathedral bells,
raise the blinds
expecting to see

the same busses I hear.
Instead

hulking before me
astonishingly green and
immediate,

more enormous than
Spartan Stadium,

an Andean mountain!

I know at last

I have left
the Midwest.

43

THE FIRST DAYS

My first days in Colombia

as a Cuerpo de Paz

are spent

in orientation meetings

and in exploring Bogotdz

I drill contrastive phonology,
walk miles,

sample arequipe, agua de panela,
platanos fritos

and listen,

always I listen

to the Spanish.

There is a sefibra

living with her son and daughter
in the pensidh

where I am staying.

She works

in a saldh de belleza

as a manicurist.

One afternoon

I take her two children

to a nearby park.

I buy them balloons and dulces.
We gallop together

until I gasp for breath

in the thin air.

That evening

the seHbra

insists on giving me

a manicure.

She trims my cuticles

until they bleed,

then shapes and polishes my
unevenly chewed nails.

She calls me "su merced",
your mercy,

and says she will

pray for me.

I know she will.

The next day

I leave the pension
for Tunja.

49

ENTERING THE BROWN

Por las montafias

winding

por las montafias

higher, higher,

ten thousand feet up,
where hearts are larger,
where campesinos

wear only browns and grays,
their somber temperament
reflected in their clothes.

Por las montafias
winding still

we arrive at last

in Tunja,

the clay and tile city
that is to hold my life
for the next two years.

Tunja is a brown place
amongst brown hills.

Her buildings are brown,
her people's faces brown,
brown veins coursing
rich brown

Chibcha blood.

Barren brown barrancas
beyond

dusty brown streets.

We enter

the main square,

la Plaza de Bolivar,

lined on one side

by tiny almacenes,

and opposite them

the bulky brown

sixteenth century cathedral.

50

I feel

brown eyes

on my too long

too white

body--

inquisitive, suspicious
they linger a moment,
turn back to their own,
leave me free,

anxious to absorb

the warm sounds

the clay and dust

the brown

the brown.

51

PRIMER APARTAMENTO

Tunja's buildings

are clay and tile eggs

in the dry-grass nest

of hills

which surrounds her.

I live in one like the others,
near the edge of the city
on a narrow almost-street
with holes as large as
laundry tubs.

In winter

when the rains come

and we once again

have water--

it runs brown at first,
always we must boil it
before drinking--

the street is a scarred and
muddy riverbed,

passable only to patient burros,
petering out, forgotten
just beyond us.

I live with another

Cuerpo de Paz.

Our apartamento has

flamingo pink and green walls,
a marquesina so dirty

we can't see out,

a shower,

and fleas.

After a month

the walls are mostly painted
(ambition fails us half way
through the last room),

the marquesina admits sunlight,
the shower runs dry,

and the fleas lose interest
in us.

Estoy contents.

52

I teach.

My students ask me,

"Miss Mary, se amaHa usted en Tunja?"
I tell them, "Sf, mucho."
Once a month

I invite a few of them

to our apartamento

for a fiesta de cumpleaabs.
Half my height,

they dance with me

la cumbia, el bambuco;

we sing.

I offer them

a lop-sided torta de chocolate
which I haven't learned

to adjust for 10,000 feet
above sea level.

They eat it all.

We invite our adult students too
to celebrate their graduation
from our course.

All night

we drink and dance together.
Like lovers

they are slow to leave.

The last one there, Joe,

has a poem for us.

He is drunk,

has trouble remembering the lines;
a friend prompts him.

It is a soft,

fragmented

slur.

Afterward we applaud

as he bows.

A week later

our students return

at two in the morning

to serenade us,

singing songs they know we love.
The four adults

and seven children

who live in the apartment below
listen too.

53

DIA DE MERCADO

Viernes.

nth de mercado.

Before daybreak

the campesinos come

on foot, on burros, in busses,
from Sogamoso,

Chiquinquira’

to the marketplace.

They bring

papayas large as moons,

cups and bowls of clay,
goatmeat which they wrap

in plantain leaves,

yuca, guavas, papas criollas.

They fill makeshift stalls
with coarsely textured garments:
camisas, pantalones,

blusas, faldas, y sombreros;
alpargatas with their

woven soles and

long black strings

that tie about the ankle.

Only campesinos wear them.
Stacks of ruanas.

Somber brown and grey for men;
teal,rose, and saffron

for the seflbras ricas

to wear in Bogota:

Always the market is crowded.
The vendors are shrewd and wary.
I learn to clasp my money firmly
and to bargain:

A c6mo son los guisantes?

A uno cincuenta.

No se puede por menos?

Bueno, sefiorita, uno veinticinco.

Bien, deme medio kilo.

Aquf tiene.

Y la Hapa?

Si séhbrita.

Gracias.

54

One woman

has the largest stall

with the finest produce.

She has no need for gringo business.
Once

in a flurry of curses

she banishes me from her stall
for fondling her tomatoes.

I am determined

to win her over.

The next week

I return with my camera

and ask to take her picture.
She consents gruffly,

scowls into the lens.
Afterwards

she lets me pick out
mangos, melones, chirimoyas,
and a few tomates.

I am careful to touch

only those I buy.

55

TRAVELLING BY BUS IN COLOMBIA

Shortly after arriving in Colombia with the Peace Corps,

I am told by an older, more experienced volunteer that I
can never fully appreciate the "true essence of Colombian
culture" until I have taken a lengthy trip by bus. Like
all good volunteers-~long on idealism and short on money--
I am, of course, most anxious to experience this essence,
particularly since it can be done for such a trifling
number of pesos.

And so it is arranged. There are three of us travelling
from Cali to Buenaventura. We carry grimy gringo lug-
gage stuffed with cans of tuna fish and peas for our
trip down the river from Buenaventura into the jungle.
We sit in the back seats and talk. This is our most
daring foray into the heart of "Colombian culture". We
feel self-righteous: twenty hours by bus over the
Western cordillera of the Andes.

The bus is crowded. Several people stand in the aisle.
One old woman holds a noisy chicken. She wears a black
fringed pafibldn over her shoulders and a dirty man's
hat. All the campesinas wear men's hats. Her hands are
bony smooth and mottled, her teeth rotten. She cackles
like the scrawny hen she is holding.

I read the signs in the bus, most of them advertise-
ments. One in particular draws my attention:

"Favor de tirar su basura por la ventana."
Please throw your garbage out the window. I think of
our American highways and the $500 fines for littering.
Which is worse--garbage inside or out?

A man and his two children sit in front of us. The
little girl has become ill from the constant weaving
through the mountains and has thrown up. Ascending

the next incline the pool of vomit becomes a river which
flows downstream toward me. The vomit is never cleaned
up so I sit on my feet for the remainder of the trip.

No one else seems to notice.

56

We reach Buenaventura late the next afternoon. After
spending the night, we set out again by bus for a small
jungle village where.a boat is to pick us up and carry
us into el Chocdl We spend the entire day waiting. we
sit in a shaded straw hut, drink icy colas from the only
refrigerator in town and watch the native women wash
clothes in the river. Curious black eyes peer at us out
of curious black faces. We take a few pictures. Our
boat never comes.

Not entirely disappointed, we take the last bus back into
Buenaventura. It is crowded and this time 2 must stand.
It has no sides and lurches wildly over the dusty pitted
path that is our road. I fantasize about a delicious
steak for dinner. Instead we eat tuna fish and peas.

57

GO HOME DOG Entre los colombianos
hay los que me odian
porque soy americana
y los que me quieren
por la misma razdh.

I was born 2800 miles to the north. This
accident of geography inspires a local
woman, the daughter of a former President of
the Republic, to mutter each time she passes
me on the street, "Go home dog!" She mis-
pronounces the words and I contemplate
correcting her:

"Miss, listen. In English the
tin in syllable final position
is occlusive, not fricative.
Repeat after me:

Log, bog, fog, hog, dog.
Much better."

Like John Fowles, I have given my fantasy
two endings. Readers may choose whichever
they prefer.

Ending one:

Ella: Gracias. sefibrita. Su merced es
muy amable. Siempre he querido pronunciar
mejor la palabra "dog." Cdmo le puedo
agradecer?

Yo: No hay de que: Ha sido mi placer.
Siempre estoy dispuesta a hacer todo lo
que pueda por los seres menos afortunados
que yo.

Ella: Su merced es muy noble.

Yo: Si: yo séfl Es porque soy americana.

Ella: Que maravilla .

58

Ending two:

Ella: Co’mo se atreve un marrano como
Vd. a corregirme a mi?

Yo: Es que Vd. tiene una pronunciacidn
I
pesima.

Ella: Péaima? Pésima! Vd. va a aprender
lo que les pass a los que me insultan!

Yea, Veo que Vd. no quiere mejorarse.
Que tipico!

Ella: La que es tipica es Vd.--gringa
ignorante y presuntuosa! Vayase de aqu
americana ignoble!

My fantasy remains only that. I giggle
over it like a child contemplating some
naughtiness she knows she will not under-
take. I am safe from myself. And from
Sefibrita Rojas Pinilla.

Perhaps here I have failed.

59

LA CUMBIA

Delicadamente

she holds the candle aloft;
it sheds amber light

on her dark face,
glistening

glistening,

a black opal,

in the flickering soft.

Repentinamente
suena una maracas;
the music

uncoils;

she lifts her skirt
with one hand

and, in the other,
the candle

begins to sway.

Silenciosamente
aparece su pareja,

los brazos alzados
hacia la luz.

He bends,

his arms fanning

the amber light

about her feet.

Once again,

like an early
worshipper of the sun,
he raises his eyes
and his arms

to the flame.

But in her clever hands,
it eludes him;
dancing,

like her feet

dancing,

dancing;

60

swaying

like her swollen breasts
which

rise and fall

rise and fall

like her feet

like her lungs

her heart

with the flame

the rhythm

the flaming rhythm
of the cumbia.

61

VOLVIENDOME COLOMBIANA

En Tunja

I grow new flesh.

Es puro boyacense.
Each day

I absorb more Spanish.
My new tongue holds
unexpected secrets,
like dolls I have seen
from Ecuador--

each one carrying
another within.

I want becomes I love
but the word doesn't change.
I learn

the local modismos

and watch

ancient structures unfold
as I speak

like some arcane magic
suddenly revealed

in the air.

Cada dia

tomo onces--
agua de panels,
una empanada--
con unos amigos
en el centro.
Por la noche
dicto clases

y después

vamos a1 mesdh
a tomar cafeI

y charlar.

Hay fiestas

y aprendo a bailar.

Mi novio tambiéh

es colombiano.

We are an odd couple.
He is

nine years older

62

and six inches shorter
than I.

But he sends

me messages

in my still mysterious
new tongue,

shows me how to bargain,
tells me of the Chibchas
who lived here

before the Spaniards,
gives me ruanas and emeralds,
and teaches me to love
in Spanish.

Con él
me he vuelto colombiana.

63