RED CEDAR REVIEW RED CEDAR REVIEW RED CEDAR REVIEW Volume 10 Numbers 2 and 3 Copyright by RED CEDAR REVIEW, May, 1976 Fiction H.E. Francis Bones.................................................................................................................8 R. Sue Smith The Mariner's Daughters...............................................................................34 Joan Stroud heaven goin' to heaven///went.....................................................................36 M. Michael Lester Dying A Somewhat Less Than Graceful Death in the Public Market........70 Poetry Joseph Garrison At the Pet Shop and After.............................................................................19 Flight................................................................................................................69 Michael Rutka The Two Tongues of the Rose......................................................................20 Hospital for the Flute.....................................................................................22 Krysia Kolodziej Miles Like Skin................................................................................................23 Ann Barclay Victoriana.......................................................................................................24 James Kalmbach To an Unknown Woman at the CLS............................................................25 Returning to Blind Lake on Sunday.............................................................27 Wendy Schulz Brancusi's Bird in Flight................................................................................29 Greta Bolger Esau Was A Manchild.....................................................................................31 Yin/Yang Equation........................................................................................32 Contents Lee Upton Chiaroscuro:....................................................................................................41 Intuition..........................................................................................................42 I Have Never Seen My Neighbor Without an Apron On..............................97 After Twenty Years........................................................................................98 Larry Gabriel untitled I and II..............................................................................................43 nadine oh honey............................................................................................45 playin d bass new Orleans style....................................................................47 Susan Rea The Pleasures of Being Thin.........................................................................49 Gathering Seashells........................................................................................51 Deborah Richardson Spring.............................................................................................................52 The Mobile.....................................................................................................53 John Hohlt Kansas Love Dream.......................................................................................55 your stride father..........................................................................................56 say someone were to teach us......................................................................57 Ray Cosseboom Rounding the Bases.......................................................................................58 Del Sneller The Lady Who Collects Sunsets..................................................................59 For Terri Allen..............................................................................................61 Alison Hedlund to the girl in the attic....................................................................................62 true poets meeting in bookstores................................................................63 Joland Mohr Circumference...............................................................................................64 Finding Reasons............................................................................................65 Midori Matsumoto Kathy found Bill at the store.......................................................................66 I watch you wobble in the glass..................................................................67 Phyllis Janowitz A Cool Day in the Sun.................................................................................79 R.K. Meiners Walking through Winter................................................................................80 Mountainous Landscape with Hermit.........................................................81 R.D. Swets old peter's world-and-life-view......................................................................85 Andrea Moorhead blue raisin.........................................................................................................87 Canticle of Joy and Ice...................................................................................88 Pat Mooney The Four Aunts.............................................................................................91 Martha.............................................................................................................92 Gretel Alone...................................................................................................93 Tom Cwynar Balancing........................................................................................................94 Janice Zerfas Sheba Waits for the New Exhibit................................................................95 A.J. Wright driving straight through...............................................................................99 Lynne Savitt The Choice...................................................................................................100 Lillith Poem No. 4: Lillith As Problem Solver.........................................101 Lillith Poem No. 5.......................................................................................102 Diane Wakoski George Washington Meets The King of Spain (on the Magellanic Clouds)..........................................................................103 CHUCK, KNOCK CHUCK, KNOCK Bones H.E. Francis July 17. Five a.m. A trawler out of Greenport is headed out to sea. Long Island has long since fused into night. Against the east the ship moves black. Shadows begin to sink; is lightening almost perceptibly. Morning lies under the ship. The trawler sits light in the sea, empty of its shrimp haul; at its width the water is low. The prow streaks foam left and right, and a turbulent wake of luminous darkness leaps up, falls and dissolves into the serene shadowed regularity of the waves. The only sounds are the rush of water and the engine put-put put-put beating far over the surface. High, the sky turns dusty, thinning gray, reflecting light into water. Now the waves turn metallic, ridges individuated ahead. Around the ship the mist glows luminous. Suddenly light blazons glints and sprays everywhere, penetrating the mist brilliantly. Three men stand dark against the first sun — one in the pilot's cabin and two on deck. A fourth, a dark bulk bound hand and foot, lies between the two. Besides the body, tied to its legs, is an enormous rock wrapped in a net. At a signal from the pilot, one lifts the boulder and one the body; simultaneously they drop them over the side. Water leaps high, the surface foams, clears, and gives way to successive waves. The man nearest the pilothouse laughs loud but starts at the echo of his voice over the surface. The younger stares where the body sank, abruptly glances at his partner, scours the sky, turns and goes quickly to the bunks. The other shrugs, crosses deck, sits on the scuttle, takes out a pocketknife and sets to work carving a skimmer half shell. Close, the winch ropes rustle in soft whispers. Metal plates fastened to the boards drawl an occasional claaaaaaak. Broken shells roll, their passage halted by brown nets spread to dry. Everywhere paint is over, fine dark lace Body and stone plunge straight down together while, above, water splashes, falls, and closes around; on the surface bubbles and foam drift 9 peeling — on deck, doors, windows, trim. Moorings, winches, dredging platform, and guard plates are rusted. Docking buffers — auto tires — are chafed gray. Even the ship's name, Gwendolyn, is so faded only END N is clear. On the cabin BADLOWSKI BROS with an enormous exclamation is crudely painted in new black. Piloting, Tadeusz is enclosed with the engine noise. Over the panes a residue of salt, dirt, and gull wastes is streaked into still snake lines by the night damp. Tadeusz gazes through it at his brother Ignatz carving. “Atta go, Iggie," he says, but his voice is trapped behind glass. Then he raises his eyes and stares at the forward door, where his brother Roman has shut himself in: You and Ig done good, Rome. That'll fix Will's ass. That mother! Screwin around with my sister, thinkin he'd get him a little'n get her away from us, an who the hell'd care for the house then? Likes the ocean, does he? Well, he got a mouthful he ain't spittin out. Nothin's so beautiful like the sea, says he, but he don't know from nothin. Try livin off it sometimes in winter when them ropes're ice 'n everything's chunks, even your balls freeze, 'n you'd wise up. Aw, shut up, Tad, Wanda says, you ain't got no poetry in your soul. Poetry, shit! An poetry ain't what she wants when she's itchin either — just ask Tad. The idea Will comin back to this town to bury the old lady 'n see the old home 'n decidin he'd come live here stead a sellin it — an keeps comin back 'n comin back — an he don't think old Tad knows nothin, eh? Smellin around Wanda, suckin around the house — an think I don't know she never cooked like that since the old man kicked the bucket. Oh, she though fillin his gut'd tickle the old man's ass till he left her the house 'n set it straight in writin. Well, she got fucked if anybody ever did — 'n she'll stay that way long's old Tad's got anythin to say about it. I'm the one's doin the sayin around here. The old bastard was too stupid to know what's a will'n them lawyers ain't settlin the place long's nobody'll sign — the house'll rot out from under before anybody does. Keeps thinkin she's so smart — always workin her little angles: You guys sign it over 'n I'll fix the shack against the sky, and clear, as the sea comes over the open eyes, the flesh; at first the body descends horizontally; then, carried by the current, stone and body drift, the stone sinking faster, pulling the body so that it lowers at an angle; the clothes pressed close fill with water, loosen, balloon out, impeding the descent, twirling the body very slowly, and infinite bubbles fountain upward; the sleeves torn in last night's struggle flutter up too, but are sucked down, flatten thin in the wake of the body; and the island of sand packed 10 up, make you proud of it an you live here till you die with me lookin after the three a you — you're my brothers, ain't ya? Shee-it! Sign over, give her the deed, and up the old asshole — booted, the three of us — her marryin Will Turnbull, move into his place an sell this 'n an bank the cash, leaving Tad 'n Rome 'n Iggie out in the cold. Nosiree, not on your life, sister. I'm used to you now, baby — ain't no goddamn high class trash from past East Street hornin in on my territory. Remember that, Wanda. What's Will comin round here day an night for? I asked her. Oh, she plays it cool: We all went to school together, didn't we? Suh-matter with your memory, Tad? like she ain't shakin her ass at him every chance she gits. But nobody's around an it's Tad this an Tad that. Tells everybody: Ted's my hon, gives me a 'lowance to run the house just like clockwork — but not Iggie and Rome, them no-goods. S'pose Tad just cut off her food bill and taxes an stuff — think the boys'd take over? In a pig's ass. I told them, and didn't their jaws drop! Cash out a their pocket's the last thing. Payday Ig blows every cent drinkin 'n gamblin, an a kid with Rome's lace got to get his rocks on paid stuff. Ted, he wasn't born yesterday — he ain't no dumb Polack. Yeah, they listened to my plan to get Will — couldn't hold them down. Not now, you bastards! Wait, goddamn it! You wanna blow it? Wait till night, Sunday, when Will's headin for the city an Wanda ain't expectin him back till next Friday — get him aboard, let him have it! Chuck him in the fish hole'n you ain't worryin no more. Wanda ain't findin no man in a hurry, I'll see to that. But that stupid Iggie — Will's already in the hole — says, Let's go now. Sure, I says, an have the whole town wonderin how come we ain't waitin to shove off in the a.m. like forever we been doin? Yeah, I didn't think, Ig says. Well, try it sometime, I says. She thinks she's marryin Will's ass and his money'll fix it so's she can make it so miserable we'll haul ass out a the house we're born in? Uh-uh! You're off your rocker, girl. It's Tad's house an he's stayin, an the boys know it too — doin what they're told; they know which side the bread's buttered on. Old Tad seen to that for sure. Once you get hard in the mouth dissolves in a slow drift over the face, flecked against the light above; schools of tiny fish swim over the eyes, streaking dark against the light, strings of floating seaweed wash against flesh in passage; now far light makes a deep tunnel up, a light far off shimmers, ripples, sends out rays brilliant as a star's; deeper down, the morning white high above turns green, the green grows deeper, turns gray far out at the edge of a wide circumference, and dark, shadowed into vast deeps 11 it easy you ain't rockin the boat for Iosin it. 'N her too — she'll learn not to get hot pants 'n go strayin. Says: You want my kid a bastard, you son of a bitch? Tellin me Will don't even know it's his yet, lookin me straight in the eye like she believed it, like I ain't lived in this house my whole life, like she never seen me'n forgot what it's all about — 's if she wouldn't be back in my upstairs bed first time Will ain't lookin. Old Tad don't give up so easy, Wanda baby. He ain't lettin no mother make a scrounge a him. In a few minutes the deck is blazing white. Seated, Iggie feels the vibrations of the engine to his bones. He keeps his eye on the knife, the shell, the deck boards so they will not water. Under the sun everything is bared — the finest lines in the skimmer, the wood grain, paint peelings, cracks in his boots, the threads in his jeans, even the finest knife scars in his skin, freckles, blond hairs. Saliva drops onto the shell so intent is his mouth on his task. The back of his hand wipes his lips, the knife sweeps in a glint across his vision. He blinks. The humid mist, divided in patchy drifts by the ship, is dissipating. Already Iggie feels heat flow over the deck; on his head, shoulders, legs the summer day begins — water throws sun up, air holds the heat still, oppressive. The sea glows with widening light. Ahead is an undeviating white path impossible to look into. Headed into it, the ship seems to stand still as the sun bears toward it: of black; and slowly, slowly — rolling and righting — with the rock below, the cord taut between, both plummeting down, the feet stand on water, thick streaks and clusters of blood on the face and clothes and matted back into the hair soften, and smears and tiny filaments fold into the drift; bubbles cease loosening from the Tad says, Ig, Will's gettin on no train, get the son of a bitch away from Wanda early and make sure you get him on the Gwendolyn, then we'll take care a him once'n for all. Count on it, I says. Rome'd be aboard waitin in the bunks like he ain't there 'n me seein the taxi gets to the house early to pick up Will an then I'd hang around the depot to run into Will accidentlike. I keep hearin Ted — he'd kick us off the boat just like he'd swoop the house out from under if we didn't do the job by the numbers. We done it too. I says, Hell, Will, I know train time, you got a half an hour yet. We haul ass 'n it'll only take five. What say? Least, I says, you can give a looksee from the outside, next time you'll know which one — not but two secs ... An me all the time walkin surface of the rope, from the mouth, the clothes, the body, as sea permeates everything, the body moving like a strange new species among fish which flee, 12 — it helps it's dark an he got to stick close cause we're past the lights by Preston's dock. That's it, I says, stoppin where she's docked. But I'm thinkin Where's Tad? Tad's watchin, me hearin him like he's in my ear: You want that mother Will drivin you outa your own home? takin food out of your mouth an shaftin ya? Then what'd we have? You'd let him 'n Wanda do that to us? I even see Will's head in the dark sky with all them masts and spars like a spider's been workin, an I think You betchyarass I don't, Tad, not to my brothers; an fore I know a thing I had Will's head tight in my hands an his mouth covered an drug him down so fast he didn't know nothin — light an small an weighin nothin; just fast I lugged him on the dock an quick I see Rome come out the bunks — only sudden I heard feet behind me, scared shitless somebody seen me. An wow! what a load off! It's Tad — gives me a shove, says Throw'm in the fish hole. They's still some shrimp down there, I says. Them shrimp ain't worryin none! Tad laughed. Cut it! I says — his noise scared hell out a me. Shut your mouth, he says. Before I could lift Will, Tad's got the hatch off. I chucked Will in. He plopped down in them shrimp like hittin water. It was shiny down there. Put the hatch on, Rome. Rome's got his eye down in that hole. Put the goddamn hatch on! I says, What's with you? and poke him. Okay-kay, Jesus, he says and slides it on. I sit on it. What you sittin on that hatch for? he says. Don't I always? I says. He don't say a thing, then says, I can hear air like the air's breathin. Christ, I says, you sound like him. Who? he says. Who you think? I says, Will's always talkin poems about oceans 'n air 'n sand for Wanda like he's a woman hisself. What's he know about all that? Well, he's gettin his all t' one time. Rome didn't say nothin, just looks over the side. How come it's dark but you see water flashing? he says. Stars maybe, I says. What stars? It's black night, he says; but the waters streakin like snakes all over the place. Yeah, well, I guess, I says. Goddamn it, you two. Tad near spits, this ain't no party. Get your ass back to the house like nothin happened. I'll roll you out at four. So we git. All's I can see's Tad standin on the dock black as the devil in the sky. swim over and under, pass indifferently around it, a creature making its descent into new territory but once primordialiy not alien to it, miles from the 130 miles of its island habitat, from the 3,000 mile width of its greater continental island habitat, but carried lying parallel to it, carried too like that island once glaciated, lifted and shifted, deposited bit by bit and then whole to settle along the sea bottom, its great spine emergent from the Atlantic, on which each day millions walk, drive, lie; still cross currents 13 Forward in the bunks Rome sits staring into Tad's rumpled blanket. The air is close, stifling dank and motionless, with the heavy odor of stale wool, gasoline, shrimp, flesh. The light bulb on a cord rigged by Iggie is paled dingy by the morning sun which, in the unbroken motion of the ship, casts shadows high, low, high, low, baring the pile of clothes in the corner, the buckets, lifesaver, loose shoes, cartons, newspapers, empty beer cans, bottles. Rome simply stares, clutching his still hard fingertips white. Rapidly the light brightens over streaks of beer and wine and blood, semen stains, tears in the blankets. Now and then his breath makes a deep catch, then draws deeply; his head drops and he stares between his legs at the floor. Morning light glows from all sides, the portholes burn with brightness. When he looks out again, the mist is dispelled. Up, he can see clear, far. The sky comes in: He didn't look dead. The eyes were wide open and shining, and the shrimp shining down there too. Drag his ass out a there, Rome, Ig says. A hell of a time lifting him to Ig — slipping on the shrimp — I dropped him twice. He's sure dead — too heavy to be living, Ig says. And Will's mouth wide open too, like talking, but full of sand. I wanted to stick my hands in and clean his mouth out. I heard his talk at the house and saw Wanda's face — Tad watched her face too, hating every time she smiled or got kind of lost and sunk, like not even with us — Will took her away. Wanda tells me Rome, you're young, get yourself a girl and get out fore it's too late and you get like the rest of us: she's crying, I never saw Wanda cry, but almost — like when she don't want Will to leave, afraid he won't come back. My bones will lie on the bottom of the sea, Not I but my bones for eternity. Will taught her that — it got in my head. See what I mean, she says, he gets to you; you want — want . . . Her face gets far, she can't say it, sticks her hands in the dishes — I think she'll cry — then dries them, touches me, then looks at her hands like she's disgusted she touched me — I don't know — and shoves me away. What in hell I'm saying this to you for? Tad laughs like he does in poker — Wham-o! a grand slam! — and his eyes all sway the body, deviate it from direct descent, for long moments nearly stilling it, suspended before it veers and falls headlong, jerked askew by the stone to twist and turn and stand; while great beings, curious or preying or startled perhaps, strike the stone or the body, propelling it aside, the rock momentarily arrested, then lunging it into a new direction, the body torpedoing straight until jerked back into a reverse dive deep into increasing dark, a darkness visible, were the body to see it, 14 wet, him reeking, and pushes the table away. I wish Will was here, she says. And Tad laughs, laughs every time she says his name; then she gets quiet like Tad makes her mutt Terry scoot out back, his tail between his legs. Wanda stands at the back screen looking out like seeing somebody's coming. Well, he won't be coming now. When Will's out of the fish hole, Tad said, That rock's gonna hold him down on the bottom till the fish eat the meat off his bones. They'll never find that mother! Yeah, but we got to face Wanda; she'll be waiting for Will come next Saturday, thinking every minute's time for the train. And keep your drunk mouths shut when you're in the barrooms, both a ya, Tad said, You're my brothers, We got to stick together or where'd we be? But Wanda all the time says, Another thing, Rome — you don't need that boat. If there's a chance, that louse of an Iggie'll just beat you out of it cause Tad favors you cause you're the kid in this family. I tried but you can't talk to Tad; he's so big he thinks when he gets his hands on you, everything's — She gets that look of far again. And me ashamed — I want to sneak out like Terry cause years now I know Tad's like the old man — don't matter who with or blood or nothing: Tad comes one day up the stairs, Wanda's at the top, he stops by her a long time and his hand grabs her arm and next thing I hear them in her room — they don't know I'm there — and pretty soon the mattress creaking — I couldn't stand it, afraid, and sneaked down, so hard I couldn't stand it and hid in the shed and jacked off and stayed till he went and she couldn't see me come out. My blood brother. Least, if nothing else, we saved Will being part of this family. Cold he was, too heavy — he didn't bend. Wanda'II say Will's coming Friday night, we're getting married in June, but never mentions her belly and don't miss a day's housekeeping for the Talbots. Wanda's eyes'll be every minute on the road expecting the taxi. She'll say his words about the sea and how things could be; and say Leave here, Rome, before Tad get something on you. And I ought to go too, but what'd I do? Where'd I go? The water's the only thing, I got salt in my blood, all the Badlowskis were fishermen. Shit, deep toward farther black below, and they make the long entry into the darkest region, below heavy currents, into still waters where now dark tangles flutter about them in invisible dark, where there are scurries — fish, fronds, dumbs adrift — over rock, rope, flesh, and with momentum now they strike — first the stone then the body — disturbing silt, sediment, digging into sand, in a slow motion bouncing upward, suspended a second before falling back more easefully into invisible clouds about 15 Tad says, Rome'd be back here in two shakes. Sides, he's gonna have the boat, ain't you, boy? Tad's got to be rubbing it into Ig, using me, knowing Ig's itching to get his hands on; and I want the boat too, it's mine, the old man said so before he died. My bones will lie on the bottom of the sea. His eyes shining. Iggie tied him. I said That's too tight, it's cutting. He's dead, goddamn it, Tad says, laughing. Him laughing too, his voice downstairs with Wanda, and singing — in this house we never heard a thing but that accordion at the hops, everybody stomping in the barn and drunk and pawing at each other and ending on the floor with nobody caring who with; even stealing money out of their pockets Tad was, and the old man too, and mama laughed: Money, You give money, Momma says with her iron hand out, sitting too big to move in her chair, but her eyes not missing a thing. Get out, Rome, Wanda says. Tad laughs: He's a Polack like the rest of us, once a Polack always a Polack, ain't that right, kiddo? And me wanting to knock his teeth in. But he's right: the ocean and island and this goddamn boat and fish got me good. But honest, Wanda, I didn't kill him. But maybe Will wasn't even . . . His eyes were open. He went under like that. In the dark. In all that ocean. Tied. Wanda'II watch the road. And nobody to say a word to her. Him sitting in the pilot's cabin and holding it over us — this boat, money, the house, and who's putting food on the table. Wanda says Go. She's my sister — why'd she say it if she don't mean good to me? But I got to remember they're my brothers too. I can't forget that. And remember: Will can't come back, he can't. Tad cuts the engine. The trawler slows and gradually drifts, lulled idly by the waves. The ship stands white in the waves. The water around blazes silver. Far, silver recedes into deep blue, gray, meets a horizon vague in morning mist. Tad comes out of the pilot's cabin, shouts, "Rome!” who appears from the bunks now. The three shake the nets loose. They stand under, raising the nets high, shifting the black shadows thrown over them by the sun. They are ready to cast over. "And clean the shrimp out of the stinking hole," Tad says and goes back to the them to settle in tangles, in darkness absolute, and settle, stilled, into the sounds of silence, murmurs unheard, to lie parallel to the island, to islands, to earth itself, to planets in seas of air beyond earth, and now hair and nail and flesh settle where flesh will dissolve and hair, nails, and sand lie beside skeletal bone, sediments around the spine; and bone unquestioning and nameless will lie on the floor of the sea with myriad unknown creatures and forms holding each its own 16 pilothouse. The engine starts, the boat pulls out. Rome and Iggie check to see the ties and loops are fast. Now the sun strikes the ship head on. Over the deck the glass in the pilothouse gleams brilliant as a single white eye blinded by the sun. Already the water begins to reflect heat, the air heavy and close with it. Perceptibly the sun inches higher. It looks like a great golden hole drawing the trawler rapidly into it. Rome and Ig heave the nets over the sides; the nets tear back fast into the wake. Ig turns to check the winch, but Rome stares into the water, fastening his eyes on the nets as they sink through the clear surface, farther and farther down. silence and motion and meaning far under roots and stalks and leaves that stand in infinite darkness at the bottom of the sea far far below all light. 17 Figure without caption. At the Pet Shop and After No ideas but in things. —William Carlos Williams "This terrarium is not an aquarium," The clerk had said, pointing at the differences In seams, and latch, and lid. It set me thinking hard about William Carlos Williams and the sort Of song he might have found In Yeats' glass Byzantium Or in Walton's bed of fishes. But song would not have kept the child Intact; there was no world Clear enough contained, in space Or in time, where it could work Its charm on her. What she had seen, She had seen: the mouse had really been there, Sleeping at a handspread's distance From a red-tailed boa constrictor. I nursed the child for days, Touched her, fed her, held her. She would not look at me, Except with the grain of her eyes, Where I could see, up close, a cold ripple Of grey, as if she were molting Inside, or needed to find a place To shed her skin and hide. 19 The Two Tongues of the Rose Michael Rutka (dedicated to his snoring from whence the voices came.) Rosebudweiser (house-wife) Black coffee black coffee black coffee Black coffee Make the beds and drink Black coffee Roll his socks into a ball Vacuum the hall the hall the hall Vacuum the vacuum the the vacuum the Hall the hall the hall Woman with scary voice petticoat made of glass and roses nylon stocking crotch sandwich spread poses thrusting trusting his fantasy our bones are singing in voices clear the morning alarm won't find us hear a beer is a beer is a beer Child with a flute and inclination for ping-pong Who put the rose in the refrigerator, Who put the rose in the refrigerator, Who put the rose in the refrigerator, Who put the rose in the refrigerator, Who put the rose in the refrigerator. Rosebudweiser You walked in and shook my head so you could see the snow falling inside of me. 20 Woman with scary voice When you refrigerate a rose the cold steals its blood like a small animal in a claw it can not breathe in the frozen air it will not change. Rosebudweiser At night I hear boots crunching in the snow Child with a flute and inclination for ping-pong How can you tell if there's been an elephant in the refrigerator, How can you tell if there's been an elephant in the refrigerator? How How? Because there's footprints in the jello that's how! Pandora's box (the inscription) Refrigerate. 21 Hospital for the Flute Michael Rutka Mrs. M is lighting the orchids in her pillow on fire. Mr. K's fingers have doves in them. The doves are dead now and must be removed. Mrs. G hears music in cracking ice cubes. She feeds the doves in Mr. K's fingers orange peels which grow in her earlobes. Mr. T was a tightrope walker so his lungs have wings. The nurses don't think it's very funny when his lungs fly out the window and perch on the sun deck. Mrs. H raises flowers. They die every night and bloom in the morning. Mr. S went tobogganing with a cow. All the patients from Ward D have holes in their hearts which the dead doves from Mr. K's fingers fly through, as if they were stringing flowers. Mrs. M's hair is like a witch's broom In it, the ghost of a calliope plays like a pinwheel of death turned by the songs of the dead. Like a child riding his bicycle for the first time. 22 Miles Like Skin Krysia Kolodziej Tonight I write you a poem kiss, to find in your glove when you really want a map. I know you like the veins on maps, miles like skin stretching over your family and past. I know you like the feel of road moving under you like your own blood moving thru your children. Their names are embroidered smiles: Katya, Yuri. They wrap your head in father-clouds, make you write tear-stained dreams. You try, but can't outswim their growth. They make you a witness to their futures. It rains. You file yourself in another city. The blood moving thru your children will meet you there. The fragility of a skinny-legged boy meets with years in your father, meets with you in your tears. 23 Victorians Ann Barclay Chairs poise separately around the pale border of the crimson oriental rug. A mahogony credenza gleams under the lamplight. I have seen my face in its bloodlines brought up by polishing of so many bloodless hands. The table is draped in ivory lace, its holes too tight for fingers to invade. This room loves itself behind thick doors, in fervid seclusion; the wood burns into itself. I sit here in another century, stiff in the back. High over my collar, lines of longtied hair are knotted like questions I cannot ask. 24 To an Unknown Woman at the CLS James Kalmbach (Chicago Linguistic Society Annual Meetings, April 17-20, 1975) You were 6—3 at least. My eyes reached your chin. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a distinctly Australian vowel system though you talked mostly with people from MIT. Syntax and Semantics? I still can't tell a factive from a perfective from dative movement; opacity, transparency, cliticization! This year everyone is talking functionalism, what is the function, what is the use? What am I doing here lost in Hyde Park and never smiling at you? When I said something it usually seemed incoherent sentence that never fit together ideas cascading like slinkys. Too often language is a woman and I, with a willing tongue leave her wondering who was that fair boy from East Lansing that phantom linguist, that poetry by which I nearly came? In 1968 there was a woman in my dorm who was 6—3, perhaps 6—4. When she crossed the cafeteria she negotiated a tangle of erections like the struts of a pinball machine and was said to carry a six inch switchblade in her purse. But you are fairly chunky, more a matron than fashion model and never a fantasy fuck. 25 Rather we seemed so out of place, poet and redwood woman who could out-armwrestle Noam Chomsky who could block out all the light from a doorway and look down on almost any man so I memorized your chin. 26 Returning to Blind Lake on Sunday James Kalmbach Driving this morning to Ann Arbor. Down M-52, asphalt straight to the horizon, and turning on 36, hills and curves through Gregory and Unadilla to the dirt roads beyond the boy scout camp; the air that hugs the windows mixing with dust. At the turn off I stop and walk, past hunters standing motionless in the road, shotguns held easy with both hands, dogs barking along the slope, flushing rabbit. The old road leads to an empty parking lot, the green lake flat and bottomless. The shoreline is a crescent of white sand rimmed with topsoil, a log juts out and disappears into sand. The water is glass, the bottom all clay. From here to the sandbar, each thermocline a new shock— a globular vision. Then, backtrack up the terraced path to the ridge where the Potowatami trail runs and bobs and turns ten miles to Crooked Lake. The breeze carries memory to face and hands, the lake a puddle, the trees still with color. Beyond this ridge another and another broken only by the distant streak of powerlines, dogs, shotguns, and rabbits. If I sit here all day, I may learn to see as the sun perceives the countryside; to see dimpling bottoms and nipples flat as paper in the exact definition of a tree or low trembling sumac. But, instead, I get up, chat with the hunters and drive home. Retracing back roads, lost in speed, and stopping every mile or so to scribble down some lines of this damn poem. 27 With each curve the cars come closer faces pale and disappear. For just one image I could leave my memory on a tree trunk or end up spinning along the pavement, or rolling over and over down a glacial dump, finally splashing into water, the wave rising high and blue and wrecking the hill and sliding back. Four bald tires gleaming black and sinking as ripples splash and cover and cover and are gone. 28 Brancusi’s Bird in Flight Wendy Schultz for Sonia the line of your shoulders, muscles folding, shadows on bones and moving, hurts. your back owns wings I ache to see. 29 Figure without caption. Esau Was A Manchild Greta Bolger “I saw Esau kissing Kate. Fact is, we all three saw: I saw Esau, he saw me, And she saw I saw Esau." —Children's Rhyme In the glaring light at the kitchen table They talked, laughed; Shared a bowlful of smoke. I sat in the shadows to hide my flamed changings and watched them spill outside the lines of the secret. They are different men. When I look at the four hands: two brown & smooth two white & hairy that have touched me hard in the night and soft in the morning I feel I was trembling alive before the world began Clay of the earth turning gold by the fistful Alchemized by hot volcanic explosions Set spinning, wild with mysterious power that touches lives silently In dark rooms and well-lit kitchens. 31 Yin/Yang Equation Greta Bolger I Clearly cold and objective. November. Black-boned trees etched a numb pattern Against the black sky. The white moon was a screaming O over the Western world And nobody heard. That was a most Western time, then. All was things; had uses and disuses. November suited it well— Black and white landscape. Too cold to feel. In the foreground stood the brown man Clearly apart from black and white division. Full of mystical Eastern ideas Of Life Love and Woman. II Saying "au-revoir" seems unnecessary To a mechanical woman The gears gone toothless; his smooth skin repulsive. Seeking the darkness The woman left, walking. He followed after, Frantic. Knowing too well the self-destruct mechanism Built in To the American machine. 32 III He had tried to hold it. Sooth and satisfy it. For a while the darkened silence Made the mechanics of love Workable. But the steel rusted out. The device broke down. IV Driving reckless He saw her finally Walking the dark road and talking alone Embracing the only trustable reality Self-oiled gears with no doubts or regrets. He screeched the car over Jumped out, babbled endlessly: "Please, please, don't make me to worry again like this, my angel, my always love." He sat in the road, crying Pounding the car till his knuckles were bloody Proving a humanness That exists in broken flesh. V The black road, the white car Under the screaming moon The eastern man bled helpless At the mercy of his own Absurd emotions. The machine grew disgusted At this display of theatrics Ran over the brown man And went on her way. 33 The Mariners Daughters R. Sue Smith At the moment of orgasm I visualize my mother wringing her hands. I press my fingers further into the stained satin lining of Renee's body; fingers inserted, exploring both holes, we walk the hall to where my mother wrings her hands and my father fights the lock on the door. I pin Renee's legs to the bed and we begin again. Her eyes scan the ceiling for a pinpoint of light which widens inside her like a tunnel so she may shoot through herself toward a rosy explosion and my mother is wringing her hands and my father threatens to unbolt the door if I do not come out this minute. My passion grows. I respond by lovingly wiping out her mouth with my tongue, running it over the tiles of her teeth, sucking the moisture from the well, replacing it with my warm and nourishing self, fitting my hips against hers our bones cracking with the frantic gyrations of two women in love; my mother wrings her hands and my father pulls the belt from his pants and rages I'll beat you with this and I laugh and together we watch my mother wring her hands through the mile long tunnel, through the pink and lucid tunnel where she sits and wrings her hands. Strained and trained Renee kisses me back. Her hair spills down my face and breasts as she works her way to where the moss curls brown and fragrant where the lotus floats pink and placid on the pond. Some stark birds, sticks of feather and bone, crane and crone, cry into the silence of the big dark autumn room where my mother wrings her hands. She presses her face to the watery world of my immersion and begs me out into dark halls of shadows spread-eagled held fast across the breathless years that cannot resist the thrust of the shadow the threat of the belt. Now Renee runs her tongue as mine has run, repeating the rimming absolution of the crevise of the cavernous place where my mother sits wringing her hands. Now Renee watches my eyes for the pinpoint which will pierce me with the recognition of my father's eye against the keyhole. She inserts the key so he cannot see. She inserts the key so the door flys open like the lid of a Jack-in-the-box and out springs my father, belt in hand, my mother behind him her eyes all teary, wiping them on her red apron saying No. Renee slips inside me, rocking together, springs, squeals, the shimmy of the bed, the pumping of legs against the pumping of legs, the rocking back and forth on its spring of the Jack-in-the-box, whose serpentine whip lashes me securely to her legs, together we strain the storm like a mast plunged 34 between us and the mariner's daughters drown in the waves as my mother wrings her hands saying No. 35 heaven goin’ to heaven /// went Joan Stroud The front door swung open—the screen's mesh slithered and flies pranced annoyingly like there was cabbage on the iron four burner oil heatin' stove. //"where's ya mama—judson"—said percy struttin in the front door //he glanced—sittin' at the table—eatin' a jelly donut and mouth rimmed with milk—usin' his thumb to dabble the frosted fallins' of sugar—. "she went to pick some corn and okra—for a few of her city customers—ya know how good fresh vegetables is." Fred percy said "yea, that sure sound good—i jest got a full tank of gas—and the time to deliver ya mama's orders—tell her—i'll be back say in the next few—minutes—say half hour." yo-yoin' his head up and down—judson heeded his words—finishin' his donuts—and lickin' his fingers after the plastic table cover was clear— as percy pulled away he went and latched the stick your hand in the open the door—screen—and hooked the pronged nail secure—he grabbed his 4th of July—//parade straw brimmed hat- then jumped out the side door—that kinda hung high like a window- like a door window—placked like part of the house—except for two joined pieces fittin' either corners//like an "X" Judson looked—then saw that Percy's red-green jalopy soundin' pullin' down-up the street as goin' his sandles worn lopsided turned over rubber—slapped at his heels//as boy's feet in the dust//....his toes chocked with dust—his throat silent happy songed from a distance he could see his mama///sister siletha///and brother— g.d.—gentle dan//pickin' from the okra row- lined behind them fine straight delicious respectable ears of corn "the windows of the world are covered with rain." The whinnings of the winds rhythmed string guitars and blues in the country—colored of dancin' to the drag or the boogie—like lights dimly flickerin' and country people dressed like shufflin' around and dancin' to pass the time// 36 Judson—had percy's message pinned to his mind—it was only 15 or 20 minutes passed—when he heard the fenders//like puffed cheeks—goin' like bap! bap! flutter metal and tires hittin' the ruts///splatter! splatter! raisin' rocks and dust to reflection swirls like dingin' dry waters//// quickly judson ran to the side—and caught a ride on the runnin' board//foot board—and held onto the door and the mirror//and the josslin' and jugglin' kinda shook him up like butter//hot dry and sticky//the sun pored down with harps ''ya didn't see ya mama yet!" "naw! i had trouble gettin' the door windar latched—kinda kept slippin'— so as not to startle them—percy honked his horn—sounded like a horn with fuses plugged backwards—or a time machine from yesterday—geared with a blimp sound horn—the taps of a trumpeteer playin' "gabriel come blow your horn—sheep is in the meadow and the cows is in the corn—" the way he had to tap the right spots to get vibrations—then a sudden woooo stop—percy got out of the truck// "good mornin' miss justine." "mornin' mr. percy—i can't be talkin' and croppin' at the same time." kinda movin' towards the rows—he said//"that i know—i'd lend a hand but i been to the doctor's and he tell me to be careful—cause my heart ain't exactly in good shape." siletha and dan carried together bushel baskets—when percy said to judson—"come on boy—we can lift those bushel baskets on the truck// and ya can check the names off the list." it was pretty near an hour—and perspirations clung shower drenches —singings' like "oh mary don't you weep!" siletha's and her mama's head bandanas were soaked like kerosene sour ignitions— HIGH NOON "good lawd—can't do anymore for the day—seven row of corn—bout 50 ears a piece and bout 31/2 to 4 bushels of okra—then with some—ah that's right we gotta get to the smoke house and get some ham hocks and salt pork—say we should clear bout $two-hundred and forty.00" a sparkle lit in percy's eyes—"miss justine, that's what i like bout you, ha ha, lawd woman ya sure got a head for money and business!"/// Percy and judson latched chained either sides of the panel truck's rear tongue—and jaws real tight///then covered the corn with pieces of burlap—so they wouldn't become parched and dried//—** While the boys helped percy—siletha and mama justine kinda cautioned themselves on the leather hidden coil springs—waitin' to just nip-or or tug or scratch gentle dan stood strummin' his fingers on the roof of the "cab." // "hey siletha-" he yelled—toyin'—knockin' at the windar—she 37 huddlin' her thin legs together afraid of touchin' the clutch// unfamiliar with motor machinery—gears clutches—and so on and so forth// "mister percy// i'm gonna climb aboard and sit inbetween the baskets!" "make sure ya don't sit on any of the croppins' "— judson levied his feet—upon the tire and over the metal work isle and crouched himself real comfy//and sat real country refined with straw bittins' hangin' from his mouth, knees elevated—his ragitty denims—snaggled—and sleeveless shirt minus buttons//—with his brim shade— he shouted—"hey mister percy let's move or i'll drive." "boy be patient," his mama screamed— just at that moment the buck—and ole' man percy jerked his truck away— with "boomph!"—the front tires went into a small land openin' and out— he hit the accelerator and bam the rear end almost snapped! "God!%$%$%† my goodness3535454%$%†$$%†" they screamed. " ' %" Ole' man percy didn't respond—he kept his foot iron press on the pedal/// reachin' a certain speed//he lifted his foot//but the truck continued to raise speed—somewhat quiet—gosh he thought—what in the devil is the matter—he pressed the clutch—and went through all of the gears/// Siletha and mama justine were eyen' the dusty road about to end and extend into a washline of speckled cows—bails of hay bob-wired their eyes were stretched like hoot owls—judson panicked—"mr. percy—stop this thing—stop! i'm gonna jump—" //the rattlin' and shakin'—judson could barely hear mr. percy yell—"sit down boy! keep calm!" —gentle dan was happy as a tickle—thought he was really on some type of whoopy ride/// the fumes spurtin' from the exhausts clouded the front view like a veil of wool blankets— the clouded fumes thickened like so—heavy with poison perfume—till they congested into their lungs— mr. percy tired veerin' the wheel the tires were lifted from the ground surface//the barbwire snapped like thread///as the eye of its needle bumper protruded//the truck began to glide like/// the summer winds were like sheer transparent sheets of ice//the tires skated like perfection beneath their sights they couldn't see the spills of milk splatter the air like paint-------wash— they became///unconscious/// their consciousness became the motorin' of the engine the brakes shrieked 38 like blackboard on chalk—indigo was heavy upon their eyelids lullabye and good-night//serenity—quiet serenity slipped like evenin' upon them//— the soundins' of the brightness-ess of the stars the chirpins' of the crickets///the mornins' of country churned sun shine butter-milk the hoot mods of cows in pasture—//the sound of the engine////a boy's mama said to him—standin' besides a pail of clothespins—stop pushin' that clothesline reel/////in the sounds of squeals and squeaks////////-------! 39 Figure without caption. Chiaroscuro: The Man and Woman Within Lee Upton He pulls the moon down and drops it from his fingers. She scoops the moon up and puts it back in the sky. Each pretends the other is not there. The dark-skinned one loves the shadow, the black soil, deep patent leather and the long root. The other loves the moon, round as her forearm, familiar as a spoon, silver and white with a woman in it. She knows the man needs the iron kettle, the polished boot, the black, swimming eye of the calf. He knows the woman needs the saucer, the ovary, her swan-pale stone. He pulls the moon down. She tosses it up. He pulls the moon down. She tosses it up. He pulls the moon down and throws the woman in a silk bag. The moon he throws with her, like a glowing crust. Silver tides roll behind the eyes of the man, running through the forest, bent with the sack, shining like a ghost. 41 Intuition Lee Upton Intuition is the long root that sinks in the ear. It winds like a ribbon of birds, spooling through a canal of rocks, blackening like tea leaves. Intuition is homing. The silent witness snaps. The first signal taps, a red insect against the windshield. Stepping off a bus, a woman senses death. Suddenly a man sees the hatred of his wife, floating like a bloody yolk in the frying pan. Intuition vibrates like a faint Indian drum. It strokes the ear, then, a black canoe, it shoots the high white water of the brain. Messages fall on the man, boxes from a closet stuffed with the startling brown eye, the lung fluttering in all its pink rooms, fingers that dip in light. The woman stops. Silky parachutes drop, blossoming with the heavy knowledge of soldiers. A tiny fork trembles inside her head. 42 1 untitled Larry Gabriel naked-except for a bracelet i stand here palm touchin belly (seat of my sense) think of it slidin easily effortlessly across d curves (or lumps &bumps) cock hangs loose/ left bein a right hand masturbater does d body sway does d body sway standin in d door w/words to say hell i love my flesh bein conscious of self to maintain grow &act on cue be sensuous (jewelry hangs on wrist at side ornamental/ it hides nothin hair grows where it may i never cut it afro workin down neck chest bare &pubic pad where fingers scratch or sometimes pull at chin 43 w/balls cupped in hands sleep comes easier its security yknow bein biological its all one has to make his children does d body sway does d body sway it moves w/d rhythm when d music play lean &stretch bend to form my angles r my art II for exhilaration i run legs step ahead d head leans i breathe deep till pain leaves chest movin past d city thru d world till horizon eats my movements does d body sway 44 nadine oh honey Larry Gabriel "nadine oh honey is dat u seems like everytime i see u yr into somethin new" 1 u came to me erotically as usual ass pinchin &warmwomb i went in there more sure than ever- yr smile &big ol eyes so serious—callin my name head rockin—fingers long artistically bent 2 what will u do with me stayin here waitin each year that energy i once despaired of turns to me deepdiggin i come close &hesitate 3 i wear yr bracelet once on its difficult to remove i believe u did it on purpose &when i made love to that other woman she liked it &sent greetins 45 "come sister &join d revolution" but we already talked politics sittin in d bar with our words legsrubbin -u told me have some more beer even though u dont drink 46 playin d bass new Orleans style Larry Gabriel david henderson- he dug it buddy bolden- dey say he played it now bessie smith- she sang it danny barker- well he wrote it my daddy (his daddy &a whole buncha other cats) lived sweated prayed worked-in other words were it -me-being a first generation removed had to be told about it new o-crescent city look like d/moon feel like d/madness ack like d/culture music in d quarter oysters on d half shell (eat fish live longer eat oysters love longer) women in d half light &church on Sunday w/more musicians in d family den u can count &stories ive heard percy gabriel &danny barker down &out in NY playin muskrat ramble w/bird round d corner playin bop 47 so dey live cookin creole transplanted i learn slowly story by story note by note scale by scale d 4/4 time d 12 bar in b flat d wang wang blues dat big man taught my daddy &he teaches me 48 The Pleasures of Being Thin Susan Rea (for David) A writer should live on grapefruit rinds, My love, and sleep on bare tables, Inhaling only the amount of air Birds breathe out when they're singing. A writer should be capable Of walking out just as the curtain rises; Of wearing half a shoe; of winging It all night, alone as air. I followed all those rules Once, a diaphanous saint. Asleep all winter, buried alive like a tulip, I was rewarded with a sprouting head. How gladly I would have completely shrivelled up, Squeezed into myself like a left over carrot, Laying down my fuzzy roots, Hunched in that darkness like the dead. But you crept below me, a subterranean brook, Carrying your hunger like a fat baby Crying for the breast, We were twins, a cleaved tree, All the rest. I write you over and over, lover, a new book. 49 Figure without caption. Figure without caption. Gathering Seashells Susan Rea The waves approached us in a rush Like commuters whipped to a frenzy, And hurried past, whispering. They never bothered us. How entranced you were with shells—jewels Perfect as debutantes; I watched you, busy Gathering your fans, bones, wings. You might have gathered my hands Before you left; You might have snapped me up like a jail. I waited, itchy as hives, Useless as a visiting aunt, Until the sea snapped on a cleft Rock, broke in a dozen spumy pools, And clattered at my feet like knives. Little pockets rippled on the sand You'd picked, left forlorn as a minefield, A riddle of petrified lace, braille For the blind sky to read. 51 Spring Deborah Richardson Toad with one eye spying on the inside of the page, of the inside of the upside down chest, delicately I remove the diaphragm eeking substance a burst of unborn babies, swishing in an ivory cup, inside my stomach I wonder, washing it carefully, holding it up to the light for holes, hearing the hole in me, unfilled undone, dusting it with Johnson's baby powder putting it carefully in its little coffin to wait another year or so again. I go to the window. I see the birch tree and a pine I can't name. I stand in the bathroom, the cold air from the unmended break soiling my face, I stand hoping something is growing in me, a tongue full of fist baby chicken teeth, hair by the sixth week, the woman's body upright pushing out the poem, hitting the lick side of stamps in the ice cage wishing a seed would sprout to shout there is something pouring out see her belly it blooms like an infected fish she bares she does not bleed she has been touched 52 The Mobile Deborah Richardson (for Clare) I see you looking up with your coat and your gloves in your hand, you wait -His leggings are in that bag- you say You wait I look up and you are waiting -Why don't you stay- I say You hardly change, smile just a little and quickly put down your things as if I might change my mind Our son gets out some paper and you teach us both how to make snowflakes Mine always turn out wrong -That's because- you say -you are not making it a perfect square. So we sit on the floor, your son and me, and we make a mobile which is now moving after both of you are gone I wonder about the thread I tied the white paper flakes with and why it moves without me doing anything. I think about us in the middle of reading a Conrad novel. "Nostromo." Somebody is hunting silver. Was it, that you always knew how to make the paper square, and that it would come out right, that I left? Maybe I wanted the paper to be the shape I wanted it to be and still come out perfectly. But it didn't. 53 Your sister makes dinner for you both every Sunday When you leave I put in tins of baked English pies from Kresges. It's strange but maybe the mobile Wouldn't move if it were perfect because just before you left our son took out a long piece of plastic and attached a little boat he had made out of paper and it balances perfectly. It still moves and his last quick addition created it He is both of us. The even. He balances and a quick look and change makes it like no other It's better this way. We move better apart and he balances Can't you see the shifts between father and mother? We both meet the scales evenly, finally, and with grace. 54 Kansas Love Dream John Holt The prairie house that was birth-shelter for some of us, seed house, stands open now, a cracked husk and no seed more housed within. The door is open: breezes come touch the dust that longs to settle here. Prairie winds come pant like vandals, engender heat in sofas with bellies swollen and tarantulas for children. Every law here is binding: something like sighs, the gasp of wheat falling before the scythe, clings to the mowers' smeared and tacky hands, goes with them to the homes at evening. In moonlight the floor is drenched and drenched the yard beyond: a silt dark water to walk upon, silt dark water flowing past the screens we sleep behind and into our eyes. All night our souls move on the flood: are christened by Herod's hand and take up his lance. When we wake we feel sand chafing our summer-sweaty necks and the taste of blood is unkillable in the throat. 55 your stride father John Holt your stride father was enormous your heels resounding on mere floors of wood like hail showers beating my heart it was never so late or I so tired but I could hear it somewhere out there where August nights racked their bodies with dry thunder now in sleep I am in my own country here the windows crack with hail and earth itself dashes its head against my stony sill I am alone and you repeat yourself walk with even greater strides gash the land with long canyons 56 say someone were to teach us John Holt say someone were to teach us to use our teeth to burrow to make tunnels in the loam a fine gravel might coat our bellies our lips know the smear of earth our shut eyes might learn to abhor a surface the penetrable dark would be our love caverns shaped to a coiled body all that goes hollow and unknown and even those altered lips attract a kiss 57 Pounding the Bases Ray Cosseboom Back there then any knock on the door opened days that began with Mrs. Ludden's lilacs across the street, the Fletcher family working on their new house, — and we walked past all of this with our gloves, bats, and a ball, and soon at Whithman's Field what skipped across the grass at the edge of the infield would take a big bounce, and even before you could stop it, all the dreams in the world would take big cuts, and swallows would go over, hollers blossoming behind me, and I felt then I was rounding the bases of something so large each small town in Maine was ninety feet away, and all I had to do was slide, and this miracle would be safe, and everyone would win. Then Ikie Booth would hit one almost as far as Goose could, and it would go across Grove Street, over the telephone wires, take big bounces on Bangor Avenue, and come to rest in one of the endless small gardens near a small porch, — and we would all run, and look for it, — and even before we could get back it was years later: Goose was living in Augusta, Ikie was on the coast, and the rest of the kids had evaporated, and I would come often at night under the stars and walk around, and when I did everything ever would begin to run again, a big wind would unwind, and Goose would holler again from short, joking about how Dickie said thirteen: "Thirtheeen to two is the score, thirtheeen to two.” 58 The Lady Who Collects Sunsets Del Sneller My neighborhood owns usual things: Potted geraniums, divorces, Thin hounds that karate trash, Professions interesting as cuts, A few automatic sons exploding forward on cycles And noticeable exotic trees Small as foreign children With fingers spread to feel What different rain might fall. All is like this where I live Except her, The lady who collects sunsets. Every evening she waits Outside or by a window With her camera Hoping for "real beauty." Her blonde hair gathers traces Of emerald and red. I agree with her; not many things Are easier to find than twilight. It appears most often gently and on time. I tease her I prefer Grey sunsets or nearly white. On narrow winter evenings Just short of scarlet The way a scar is just short of hurting: She comes to my house And we drink home-made Burgundy. We know what farfetched sadness needs But she explains consistency And laughs. 59 CHUCK KNOCK CHUCK KNOCK For Terri Allen Del Sneller Galaxies that look like carnivals from afar I like to think are lights no one tends, And no motion or sound complicates Their single color. I envy the quiet inside iron, The waiting at the core of old oaks Where time rounds outward, A stone house in snowfall. For what is still Is perfect. 61 to the girl in the attic Alison Hedlund you have been there for years picking moss off the walls reading my childhood books playing scrabble in the corner. have gone thru all my old sunsuits pretending beach scenes, shaken moths from my parkas, have stamped around in my too-small boots. now you smell dead mice in the eaves & hold your nose. you sweep dead leaves into neat piles. you've started dusting trunks & arranging cracked furniture, unwrapping knick-knacks & setting them in rows on rickety tables. old spiderwebs come down, fish plaques go up, Persian rugs with holes are shaken & laid out. haven't you noticed the leaking roof, broken windows, insects calmly crunching wood? you pick at your moss; the walls grow thin. 62 true poets meeting in bookstores Alison Hedlund (Village Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan) give each other the brother handshake, show off new beards or bellies, brag about how many poems they've had published, chew their lips & frown meditatively, talk about who won what prize which year, push fists hard into tattered coat pockets, say each other's names loudly so others in the bookstore will be impressed & buy their books, shuffle their feet modestly, occasionally itch an armpit or tit or crotch to show how little they care for convention, quote Shakespeare or discuss how much they detest him, pull up holey socks, walk around occasionally picking up & smelling a book, give each other the brother handshake, hope no one will think they are ordinary. 63 Circumference Joland Mohr the search for a father can begin anytime, anytime you notice he's gone perhaps it will start when you send your voice to a person who doesn't care just outside a town birds lead the car toward the next intersection a deer crossing sign tells you to hold your breath: beauty could be around the next bend the grandfather horse by the fence tries to stay out of your next dream you'll have to find out why your arms close around you, your head resting on your breast 64 Finding Deasons Joland Mohr Cloth coats, heavy work shirts, going round and round making a pattern where there wasn't one before. First we put down this rug made by hands. Crossing the old porch rug you begin to feel the difference- how a house becomes another skin. Here you don't apologize for cracks in the wallpaper. The house stands. That is enough. It hurt me to see the blue porch mat rotting in the snow where we left it last winter trying to give the car a way to get out. Did we leave more than footprints on this rug? A rug is a small thing, what you put down for a small reason, then it becomes something you can't do without. It's where people go on their way to say good-bye. 65 Kathy found Bill at the store Midori Matsumoto Kathy found Bill at the store. Armed with lists that sailed in the wake of not-browsing propelling her forth like flagella She told the man, "What I want is..." The smart shopper always makes a list To avoid impulse buying: Dented cans in the quickie bargin bin, Their contents might be spoiled. Crushed boxes are full of crumbs. Cracked bottles have sly slivers. Impulse is my list. There have been in my life Cans whose edges creased my thighs. Leaky boxes and itchy crumbs. Fad foods that could never last. I found you at the dinner table Lean as a soupbone Peppered with puns Spinning roulette spoons for no apparent prize— We followed. Something hanging in the breath over my shoulder; Not too soon, you said, then spun suddenly me into the disjointed laughter of your bone dance. 66 I watch you wobble in the glass Midori Matsumoto I watch you wobble in the glass like seeing you so many mornings over the toaster— & I tell myself it really isn't you walking away leaving me on the other side of the window; it's only a mirror you are walking into & soon you will return quicksilver & reversed. I watch my legs expanding & collapsing like bellows in car bumpers expecting any moment to see your legs inter-weaving large & small with mine. I walk slowly past polished granite buildings & the clean windows of banks. I stare into revolving glass doors until someone thinks I am too timid to cut in, & stops it. So before I skim off leaves that have fallen into the birdbath, I pause/ to wish your face is waiting beneath. 67 Figure without caption. Flight Joseph Garrison At the sudden sound of helicopters, The jays rush, like wind, through the trees, Their wings bringing the air to pitch, Their crowns narrowing. They go straight For the blades, fore and aft, in consort. Nothing gives: the plane, the jays, Or the air. The sun shines unseasonably; And the full blue of the sky holds, For a moment, a day's maneuvers. 69 Dying A Somewhat Less Than Graceful Death in the Public Market M. Michael Lester With effort and the support of his crutches the black hunchback hobbled down Brush Street south toward Palmer. He wore a dark sheeny suit, threadbare, a white shirt neatly pressed, scuffed brown wing-tipped shoes, and a narrow maroon tie. On his head was a crimson wool fez capped by a dangling tassel, and an AM/FM portable radio fixed to a thin leather strap was slung about his neck. "Old man . . . look at the old man," said a boy to his companion on the other side of the street. "He walks two blocks and can't go no farther 'cause he has to stop to rest." The faint late summer breeze blew the hunchback's tie over his shoulder as he pikestaffed his way down the sidewalk. Occasionally he glanced up at a passerby, or someone going past in a car — squinting his right eye (affected by a cataract giving it a grayish look), holding his right hand above his brow. "That's because he's got to carry more than his own weight with a body that can't do the job by itself. Look ... he even has to walk using four legs!" The two boys watched the hunchback go down the street. The conspicuous bump of the cripple's back caused his shoulders to fall together above his chest, making it difficult for him to turn his head either one way or the other. Whenever he paused for breath or to look up he put more weight on the crutches, driving them further into his armpits, pushing his shoulders even higher. Because he was so disfigured, his dark suit coat fit badly his crooked body. The hem of the coat hung unevenly, high above his buttocks behind, and lower in front. How was she become a widow, he thought, who was once a beauty? "I speak to you," she told me. 'In the morning ... you'll hear me when I look up to you, you're not mean at heart. I would like it if you were to listen. Even if my voice trembles ... in the morning perhaps. I still like it when you look at me ... and when I talk to you and you listen.' How was she become a widow who was once a beauty? The hunchback paused on the bridge that crossed over the Ford Freeway, looked east, toward the interchange where the Ford and Chrysler freeways converge, at the cars moving in all directions; the sunlight glinting brightly off chrome caught his eyes briefly when they met at the right angle. A bridegroom comes from his chamber and rejoices as a young man to run a race; the circuit is from end to end ... He continued to peer out over the strips of road with brows contracted to prevent too much light from striking his eyes. Beyond, the interchange revealed several levels of traffic and roadway — spans of concrete and steel 70 intermingled in a variety of involuted curves; some gradually ascending, some descending. He looked as though he were trying to distinguish some distant object but in actuality his eyes had become slightly divergent and, lost in thought, he saw nothing. I've been quite discouraged since you've gone as it was the case I can't remember all of the happy times we had together. Whether it was in the factory or when we were out of work and riding the trains around. I don't remember all the times we were working at the factory — it was a long time. And the times we were riding the trains to all different places across the country was a good time. Not that it makes any difference at all though ... I was just wondering about it. Sometimes while I'm walking I think about you. I think about you, and sometimes too I think about your widow. I go for walks quite a bit, or at least I try to as these legs ain't what they once was, Cyrus. When we were living back home near the park on the old street in the purple house ..., and many years kept it. What people knew it as. That was long before you died ... I think it's probably better that you're dead, Cyrus, probably better for both of us. I wouldn't be able to keep up with you anyway, not in my condition. So we couldn't keep together now anyway. You're better dead I think. And they tore down the old house by the park anyway. Just like everybody else you'd be caught. Now me .. . with nothin' to do: I just walk when I can straight ahead tryin' not to look to either side. But though I try to walk in a line it seems I just keep going in circles. I don't know. The hunchback gazed up at the sky, hazy, washed out and faded — the clouds like cotton on a background of white — and pursed his thick pink lips, tightening the muscles in his face. One o'clock. A factory horn sounded in the distance. The temperature was still rising; already it was ninety-two degrees and humid. The hunchback pushed his right hand into his pants pocket and pulled from it a white linen handkerchief to wipe the greasy sweat from his forehead. He felt uncomfortable in the heat and as he looked back to the pavement, the vision in his right eye blurred even more than was usual. His face, shallow and rotund, contorted as a wave of nausea swept over him. He spit on the sidewalk. He let his crutches fall and leaned foreward seizing hold of the railing. The radio slung about his neck swung out from his body and banged against the rail. The crimson wool fez fell off his head and lay next to his feet. He lowered his head and blinked hard, breathing deeply, to rid himself of the ill-feeling. A moving horn blared from a Mack trailer-truck behind him to the south down Brush. Bang! to the north. The hunchback with a spasm of surprise, twisted his body around violently and saw on the corner of Brush and the service drive, back in the direction from which he had come, a delivery truck jerk ahead a couple of feet and to a halt with a squeal of tires on the pavement. Beasts driving, he thought, and them trucks and cars sputtering foul, polluted air. He spit again, and holding fast the rail bent at the knees, straining, and gathered his crutches and fallen fez. First he put on his fez, then he managed to tuck the two crutches under his left arm. Struggling, he stood up again. 71 The driver of the delivery truck, a dirty blonde-haired man of about twenty-six years, sweated and wearing a soiled coversuit, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, jumped down from the cab and slammed the door. He looked at the traffic that had collected in the lane behind him, held his arms akimbo, and cocked his head in a sign of defiant exasperation. He opened the door and climbed back into the cab, took something out of the glove compartment, and as he scrambled down again, locking the doors in the process, he let his cigarette fall out of his mouth. He crushed out the butt with the toe of his work shoe. After lifting the hood he stood for a short time, hands in pockets, mumbling to a small group on the sidewalk that had assembled to see what happened. He pulled another cigarette from the package in his oversuit pocket and asked a tall black teenager with a goatee for a match. When his cigarette was lit he thanked the boy and began walking down the street in the direction of the hunchback. The hunchback watched the man come nearer. When he passed, the two exchanged expeditious glances and ignored each other. When the man had progressed a block further the hunchback continued to walk, following him, though he was not able to keep up with the younger man's pace and maintain the distance between them. The black hunchback continued walking until he stood before a block of brown brick tenements. In the middle of the block he saw sitting on the porch of her apartment the widow, Mrs. Elsbree. But all he could see was the back of her head. It was her; he had no doubts. Nobody had hair as red or curly as she did. She was wearing a pink dress. At the step of the porch sat a big white shepherd dog which barked when he saw the approaching hunchback. This caused Mrs. Elsbree to turn around and see him. When the hunchback saw her smile, he feebly turned up the corners of his mouth and glanced toward the ground. The woman strained to stand up; the black dog tied to a leg of the chair on which she was sitting began to bark; she trudged down the porch steps. She was a fat woman. The white dog ran away when she came near. Mrs. Elsbree stood on the sidewalk in front of the apartment waiting for the hunchback with a broad smile on her face showing all her teeth. When the hunchback came nearer she said to him: "I saw you coming down the street while you were still some ways away. What were you thinking about? "Psalms,'' he answered. "Well Reverend," she said, "you always were one for thinking on lofty subjects." "Yes ... thinking on them is true enough. I don't know that I've been able to talk with anyone for a long time though about anything serious. Cyrus and I could get into many fine discussions about lots of things. We spoke about almost any subject almost any time of the day or night at all. Why, I remember..." "Yes, you sure did, didn't you? You and Cyrus. You both talked together a lot. I think it's wonderful that you still think on Cyrus as much as you do — I do too. It's difficult to think about him always though, being dead now nine years, but little things all the time remind me of him ... I should imagine he'd 72 been awful happy that we would still care about him and feel so close to him even now he's been dead of so many years." As Mrs. Elsbree was speaking, the hunchback spied the man who drove the delivery truck coming back north. He was going back to the busted truck. The hunchback twitched uncomfortably. "I know . . . but, like today," he said, leaning heavily into the crutches, "I was walking here and I can't remember ... I can't fix his face, you know, what he looked like, in my mind. I guess I feel kind of badly about that. I feel like I'm not able to remember. I feel like I should remember. Remember the way he looked at least. Mrs. Elsbree blinked and winked her eyes. Then she crumpled up her face and said reflectively: "Yes . . . yes I wish sometimes that I, we, could see him or maybe talk to him just one more time. Then maybe it wouldn't seem so that he was fading from my memory. Now, I think I could describe him, his features and all, what his face looked like and that. But I believe I know exactly what you do mean, Reverend, that you can't see him in your mind. Then again, he never did have no pictures taken of him that I can recall. And we could never afford one of those tape recorders." She laughed and rubbed her fat hands together. "And I just can't conjure a picture of him in my mind either." The driver of the delivery truck passed by. This time the two did not look at each other. "How did you get here? What made you come down this way?" said Mrs. Elsbree, her eyes following the driver down the street. The hunchback saw her watching the man and when her eyes returned to him he averted his gaze and looked toward the ground. "I thought I'd go for a walk and come this way as I haven't seen you since quite a while. It's too hot a day for me to simply sit in my room and do nothing ... without no fan to put on or anything." Mrs. Elsbree pulled on her lip. The vision in the hunchback's right eye became blurred again as he looked at the widow. There was a short period of silence and he looked up to the sky, squinting. Mrs. Elsbree gummed her lips. I don't know why I thought, don't know why I thought at all. For me it's hard to walk this far, thought the hunchback, especially in times when it's hot like today. No pictures of Cyrus? . . . no, I don't remember ever seeing one. I don't remember any times a picture was ever taken either. I wonder why it is? Caught. Mrs. Elsbree turned and began walking back up to the porch. The black dog lying there wagged its tail. The hunchback watched her. Caught. Cyrus, you . . ., me. All caught. Even now we talk about him all the time, thought the hunchback. We never talk about her; she never speaks of herself. Never talk of me ... or us. Never. Never mention nothing at all. "I love you so much," she had said. Said that to Cyrus too. "My desire .. . my sorrow. I need you. I want you to love me. I still like it when you look at me . . . and when I talk to you and you listen. I pray that you know I love you." The hunchback stared at the widow, but did not see her. His eyes had become divergent and his field of vision blurred. 73 "Lost in thought?" Mrs. Elsbree called from the porch. The hunchback saw her, and walked toward her. He struggled up the stairs. Mrs. Elsbree sat down on the unvarnished wooden chair she had been sitting in earlier. There was an identical one next to it. The dog lay on the porch floor panting. "Yes," said the hunchback, taking care not to disturb the dog or hurt himself as he lowered his body into the empty chair. He pat the dog on the head. He placed his crutches on the floor next to him. "Yes." Mrs. Elsbree watched him. He carefully unslung the radio from about his neck and held it in his lap. He turned it on. Nothing. He shook it and held it up to his ear, smiling at Mrs. Elsbree. "Something the matter with your radio?" she asked. "I guess it don't work," he answered shaking it again. "I dropped it on the way over here. The strap fell apart." The dog shifted its eyes back and forth between the man and the woman. The hunchback gently set the radio down by his feet. "Stranger ... so where have you been? Have you been hiding or something?" asked Mrs. Elsbree. "You must've been hiding seeing as you haven't visited or paid a call more often. I don't even recall exactly when it was the last time I saw you! It must of been long ago!" she smiled at him and rubbed her hands together. The hunchback returned her smile although he did not feel like smiling. Then he looked at his feet. When he looked back up at her he noticed that she was looking past him out toward the street. He shifted his body in the chair. He wasn't shocked when he saw that the big white shepherd dog had returned to his position on the porch stoop. The woman stared directly at it, hardly blinking at all. The dog never advanced, but simply sat there with its tongue hanging out of its mouth to the side, watching the black dog tied to Mrs. Elsbree's chair. The black dog looked back at the white shepherd, and now and then, panting, it shifted its eyes and glanced at the man and woman. "Do you remember when the old house came down? The rafters and the beams?" asked Mrs. Elsbree, still watching the white dog but placing her hand on the hunchback's arm. "Do you mean the house by the park?" "Yes." She looked at him. "It was a long time ago ... It was like an accident on the corner watching them tear down that house." The two did not exchange words again for five minutes. Mrs. Elsbree continued to stare at the white dog. The hunchback reached deep into his pants pocket, took out his handkerchief, and again patted his forehead. "Do you remember the stories he used to tell all the time?" asked Mrs. Elsbree. "I remember many of the stories he used to tell," said the hunchback. He looked at her, readjusting himself in his chair. The widow looked back at him. "Why?" "He used to talk sometimes about a man he once met when he was young, before he knew either you or me. And this man he met was kind of a pilgrim. He was German and he wore a straw hat." "I remember it piecemeal . . . not the whole thing." The hunchback 74 laughed a little." Funny . . . things that happened to him. Interesting things, mostly. And he always told stories about them . . . sometimes to the point where other people would retell them: 'Hey! Did you hear what happened to Cyrus? I don't remember this story all the way though. What were you going to say about it?" "Well, this man who was a sort of pilgrim, wandering all around the country, from city to city, talking to people just to talk, to get to know them, not for any other reason in particular if I remember correctly — in many respects this man Cyrus spoke of sometimes reminds me of you. I really don't know why. I mean you're not German and you don't wear a straw hat. . . but you talk to many people . . . walk around a lot. Talk about many things. Like when I asked you what you were thinking about and you said Psalms. You think things. I don't know about that ... I wonder at times what you're thinking. Just as Cyrus wondered why the man who was a pilgrim was wandering." "And then he was runned over by the train that one time when the cinderbulls was after him," said the hunchback. "That was a short time after he left you, wasn't it?" "I can't be certain . . ." said Mrs. Elsbree, looking at the white dog, "I mean, he told a lot of stories. I don't know. I can't keep them all separate . . . one from the other. They overlap ... all of them. And I can't remember when things happened. He was killed sometime after he left but I wouldn't be able to say when. And if I was to say whether or not I did know or didn't know, well, then I still wouldn't know for sure whether or not I did know or I didn't know. I wouldn't know for sure whether I was telling the truth or a lie. I do recall though that he used to tell many stories. And you're right about saying that most of the stories were about things that happened to him. Most of the stories he told were like that." She looked at the hunchback; he looked at her. The widow's eyes were wet. "Why, I remember he used to come home to me all the time when you two were working at the factory and tell me the things that happened during the day - the foreman did this, or Charlie did this today." She paused. The hunchback looked away from her. He leaned over carefully and picked up the radio, placing it in his lap. "This don't work no more," he said. "You used to take it with you everywhere you went since he died, didn't you," said Mrs. Elsbree. "Yes ... listen to it," said the hunchback, not looking at her. "Slung about your neck." When I go out for a walk. It's too hard for me to carry, having to use these crutches, so I sling it around my neck using this strap." He tugged on the strap and glanced at her quickly. The widow still had tears in her eyes. "But I carry it when I go out to walk. Not going to listen to it no more though. No more company in a radio that don't work." "Yes, I can see where it'd be a lot easier for you to keep it around your neck. Maybe it can be fixed." The hunchback shook his head and looked at the white dog; then he 75 looked at the black dog tied to the chair. The black dog wagged its tail. He looked up to the woman, whose eyes were still upon him. "What did you used to listen to, Reverend?" she asked.. "Not any music and no dance," said the hunchback. Both he and the woman smiled. "Would you like to have some lemonade?" asked Mrs. Elsbree, "I still have some left over from yesterday." "It was good yesterday," said the hunchback. The woman forced herself to her feet, and rocked into the apartment. "I'll be right back out," she said. When she had entered the building the hunchback began rubbing the black dog's back with his foot. The temperature was ninety-three degrees. The day was coming up on three o'clock. The hunchback sweat profusely. From time to time, sighing, he pulled his handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. I remember that Cyrus used to say it would be foolish for a man to .. . God rest his soul. He's dead now, when all's said. He's across the river. He was runned over by the train that one time when the cinderbulls was after him. I do regret, Cyrus my friend . . . the widow's dear husband, is no longer with us. Deceased. To grow old with us. If you were alive we'd of been able to talk still. We would have a grand time talking about things. This time and that time. The time was we used to wrap ourselves up in our Chicago and Alton coats and ride the rails when things wasn't so good. Pack ourselves up and leave carrying the passengers: active citizens, bosom chums, the light infantry: fleas, mites, ticks and lice. Like someone crazy with itching to travel, from east to west and back again, we'd ball the jack . . . and hop aboard a slowly rolling freight. Cyrus. I guess you might say you was a doughnut optimist, living hand to mouth for days on end — and happy to do it too. Happy to be seeing new things, to be out in the open, out in the country. Sometimes we'd go to sleep outdoors covered by nothing but the moon. That was nice, to sleep like that . . . unless it rained or was cold, or both! I guess we both liked it. And you never much minded that there was never very much money in the pocket. Never acted like you was better off at all than you were. Cyrus . . . never complained either. He was no pretender. "A man ought not to pretend to be rich when he ain't got a dime," he used to say. "He'll starve if'n he does." Cyrus never feigned to be other than a cinder grifter, a hobo I guess you might say. Just somebody who when he couldn't get a job rode around. There ain't really anybody else who knew you as good as I did, Cyrus. And there've never been a better set of chums than what we were. Remember Cyrus, remember... oh remember? The hunchback took off his crimson fez; he placed it next to his feet, and the radio next to it. Mrs. Elsbree came back out to the porch carrying two glasses of lemonade. She handed one to the hunchback. "Nice an' cold," she said smiling. "Thank you," said the hunchback. "Reminds me of when I was a girl and made cold lemonade for all of the boys," she said. "I'm going to have to get some more lemons to have some for tomorrow." 76 “I'll be happy to go to the market with you to get some if you'd like to," said the hunchback. "It can wait," said Mrs. Elsbree. She drank from her glass and smiled gently at the hunchback, who trembled, softly. "In the morning." 77 Figure without caption. A Cool Day in the Sun Phyllis Janowitz You gently dust the skin from the blowfish like a cobweb. It is left headless, small and white with silver fins. There is no end to the patterns that can be made on water. Ours is an iron fretwork we impose upon the wavers; when we leave it will still be there. Like the water and sky or the cool bar of the flute you play, leaving a permanent stain on the sand Or the bird sitting on a rock since yesterday. I feel tied to the blanket on the beach waiting for a different bird or until you get hungry and we go inside. If I were here alone I would stay forever until my skin slipped off like feathers and my bones bleached, and I disappeared into the sand or blew over the water. So effortless, painless, natural. 79 Walking through Winter R.K. Meiners 1. As one has somehow lived and walked through the empty times and gray places one must live in this cold and walk through it. One keeps walking through this white winter with the empty nests in the leafless branches, bearing this cold landscape and these rocks that once listened as one walked through them. One counts all the holes in being, numbers the cracks in the silent earth that sees nothing, and speaks no language. 2. I live as I walk in what I see. In this white landscape I am what is seen when the cold silence looks back at me. The gray wind tangles the gray branches and speaks mind and leaf to the eyes. I watch the folds and wrinkles in time, in cold earth, in me, where the seeds lie. Light is growing at the heart of things and an eye is waiting in the light, a day's-eye, a narcissus, an iris. Somewhere in this cold a flower grows that will bear like a strange blossom my name. 80 Mountainous Landscape with Hermit R.K. Meiners (on a drawing by Paul Bril) 1. I can hardly think the way it was, can hardly penetrate his strange brooding over his book as he sits here where the forms of trees and rocks tower up in their leafy, mineral abundance, proclaiming their own magnificence to themselves and perhaps to God (whose Glory they declare) but not to the hermit. They fill the paper with their presence and the viewer pauses, stunned at this plenitude. The hermit finally is discovered, lost in a brown wash and study, buried at the lower left corner of the universe. He is here, and maybe the Holy Spirit, beside a little shelter beneath the ridge's brow where some sparse ruins stand. An allegory of vanished paradise? Some goat-herder's abandoned winter shelter? Who can tell, here where everything is filled with the great rolling cosmos. I can hardly think this, can scarcely dream a place to stand among these mountains. 2. Still, the viewer imagines this scene, thinks himself there. With a notebook, maybe, a pocketfull of nuts and raisins, a canteen, two or three moral books or the old fables he had meant to read out in the open under the trees and clouds, motives naked 81 in the view of sun and sky and eternity. Why will this hermit not leave his piety and look around? I think he stirs for I am imagining this and all this quiet is too much for me. I, sitting herein my glen poised above Spring Creek while the sun sifts through the aspen leaves and turns all the fir needles into a prismatic forest, notebook open, horizon narrowed— I think he stirs. He turns from his Vulgate, yes, and dreams of Ovid and all those erotic limbs and tongues swarming into a tangle of creepers and tendrils. The universe plucks at the margins of his robe and page, and deceitful love swims everywhere through the outlandish mountain light. The letters blur upon his learned page as they blur upon mine, but only I reach out to pick a leaf and look at it as if it contained the secret, and we both gaze at trees, at mountains piled on mountains, musing on near and far and love and the hard joys of desire and the will to nullify distance and desire. 3. One is here because one has seen it, has walked back through the dream to here, drifted up this hill to reach Cathedral Spires or the spot below the brow of Windy Peak. And here are pack, books, binoculars, provisions from the world that waits below. And here is the hermitage, and one knows he waits supreme in his indifference to all this grandeur, and it to him. But how shall I perform the task I must have thought I came to do? The books lie untouched, notebook unmarked, and all around the amorous universe sprawls and sings me into it and I respond. I pull the glasses from the pack and stare down the path by which I came and wonder what I know of distance or why I care, and wonder how that path could ever form the measure of desire. 82 I dream again the hermit of Paul Bril. Now he must lay aside his book. Now he must glance at this landscape that he must know by now we share. The small buildings of forsaken towns lie down there below our feet, filled with all the customary lives. If he looks will he think of her who lives back there, the one with quiet eyes, with long smooth legs, with a few soft words that cloud our page? Oh, she flies through our memories like the shadow of a slender bird! 4. A quiet summer day. The water splashes at the bottom of the gulch. A day like many others, but different, overlaid by the unholy calm and concentration of that accursed hermit I saw last night, then dreamed again before I could awake, and now I cannot wipe his strangeness from the quiet day I'd planned. What was it I came up here to find? Not some ancient from an allegorical heaven. No, and not the brown nude girl who walked along the stream a moment ago and vanished up the mountain with a smile for me sitting by my rock and tree, musing on the strange dreams of reality. If she walks through his scene will he turn to her, or to his books, or pack up all and return to the shattered, expected world? 5. Here we have a drawing by Paul Bril who is among "the northern masters of the Italian manner" and in the sixteenth century placed a hermit in this landscape to delight the eye and chasten the mind with anagogical reproofs. Conventions change, and images; only fifty years and they'd be placing at the foreground of this very landscape the figure of a small artist, gazing intently into the obedient world, recording the forms of the very drawing in which he now sits, thus teaching us that perspective is from a place that we may move inside another place, relocate the eye, 83 and make of great things small ones. He will not see a hermit above his hill, and he will not draw one. I cannot dream that he will draw me sitting here. Nor do I believe that a brown girl has walked through his world as I know she walked through the hermit's dreams, as she walked up this glen and past this rock where I sit with my books, papers, and my impotent binoculars, dreaming of near and far and distance and desire. 84 old peter's world-and-life-view R.D. Swets old peter had it right slow gaelic whiskey in dark bars is the proper solace for sins sorrows & confessionals he also had it right concerned to keep the altar gold & inviolate the monasteries cool & damp & always in prayer old peter understood his great commission that the gravel truck he drove was a kind of fiery chariot that he was a kind of angel bearing elijahs rattling like bones behind him over the highway that the cement plant was a kind of heaven 85 Figure without caption. blue raisin Andrea Moorhead in the wild damp clay a bird nest under shell the blue raisin here a fruit so still under sun and under the black raining tree. a bird shell the moon mirror, green and the warm clipped grass a flower under my hand and a waiting light green and cold a bird shower in the rain black sea. 87 Canticle of Joy and Ice Andrea Moorhead without blood or the coarse wild flax green willow bends my bone, and the frail canticle splinters without blood or cruel jar of unending peace the wind hides slow in sleep, and the first chill enters snow and green snow and the ash to my brow leaves without blood or green green sound and chasm has in bark shoot stem and a raw raw splinter tied, by my feet and earth long cold, worn in the rain and dim. seeping snow and the green tender stalk rough and rain on the shore pummel grit and rain pummel and the thirst grows dim seeping snow and the raspberry thorn settles low, and the green green shoot on my mind 88 thorn and wet wild rain. and the rough grit hides my palm shore on my eye and the green snows wait. and the red rains hide. invisible one without tatter or shape or the breath which clings, invisible and the rain cease and my mind grows firm, speech of an instant and the clutters build resin and the red raw limbs cold and skin and the wind howls low, and my amazement knows no green invisible but the breath breathes pure, and the limb chill cease. red rain on my heart and the door freeze shut, slight of an instant and rain crease the black mud, the hollow reed and my tree here is dark and snow falls the red rain on my heart, and the cool breath one which never seen and one which never hears the rain snow fall, the peace black and limp, leaf of another fall and wind lights my grave. 89 i have never an instant removed, nor stone on my head belittled, but the thick tide which my bones endure shall shatter the grail imprint rain for your lips bury the grave, and the red rain of my boneless seal. smolder the light and shatter the dew! 90 The Four Aunts Pat Mooney daughters of the same woman who came from germany and denied it for false polish ancestry. first they lived on a farm in alpena sharing two small beds between them feeding cobs to the pigs scrubbing with lye until the wood floors were white, their mother could whip them sharp with a leather strap she called johnny. daughters of the same father who sold the farm to pay off gambling. they moved into the city finding jobs in automobile factories leaving school before graduating marrying as soon as they could. daughters with hair of the same gray with grown children and vague polish city accents they live in the same houses they found after marriage, the walls going dingy rugs worn through to the wood. 91 Martha Pat Mooney I am a poet waif so you take me in feeding me bagels and cheese bedding me in the atticroom of your big belmont house. You ruffle my hair nervously. You like scotch with ice in tall coke glasses, banging at the ice, drinking fast but only after four o' clock. You fight with your son though you love him, you say if only someone like me could care for him; you're drunk sleeping when we make love on the attic bed. You like the poems I write in your house, kissing my cheeks, break more ice in its tray crying dewar's-mist; you still love your husband who left you. Late into the night you play old musicals and sing to them. You used to act and sing before you married, you could have been a star. 92 Gretel Alone Pat Mooney Night blooms like a house about her. Firs line the dead end great pointed assassins. Old women live on the odd side of the road peer through oat straw blinds they are pinched and brown as old fruit. Weeds curtain every lawn. Every weed glows like mushrooms in garbage. The women never sleep. Her shadow fans into many. She screams at ghosts. The shadows scatter, sheets on a line. These bird face women have a way with ingredients. They are witches, every one. They control the rat trap evergreens. Can turn women into cats trees into rapists with a bleeding eye they can change the composition of water animate used vacuums they eat flesh they make weather in cauldrons they watch every movement beyond the weeds they watch as if they have no sight. They wait and do not sleep. They watch faithful as hell keepers until there is the smell of rain in the air. 93 Balancing Tom Cwynar Winter grinds deep furrows; February ice trees stark clouds lying gray persuade me to the lake edge where bergs stack tall against the shore. I tend toward green water where slick bluffs fall in tired heaving where a high wave or insidious melt could topple my point of ice stand picturing an ant struggling against the sides of a bucket; the cheap thrill of the edge. 94 Sheba Waits for the New Exhibit Janice Zerfas in the mirror—the same still face- thin hair flat behind the ears— the dim blue eyes—the pale rolling cheeks— the short nose above the set mouth— the marble skin. at the art gallery—dismantled paintings shoved on others— replacements rearranged under imagined niches— the Calder mobile lacks wind to test balanced circles— locked rooms await the new exhibit. 95 Figure without caption. I Have Never Seen My Neighbor Without an Apron On Lee Upton She wears blue ones that wrap around her neck and flap at her knees to go down cellar and line up cans. Her throat makes thick German sounds, full of bright, harsh notes and recipes. It's no secret her grandchildren spill from their mothers like egg yolks, or drip like milk to the floor. Each child's eye is a wet raisin in a sugar cake. Each arm, a bolt of blue cloth. 97 After Twenty Years Lee Upton I've known you twenty years and it's always the same. I watched you carve out your head when someone needed a bowl. I saw your face shut like a refrigerator with a child in it. When your husband had a punctured throat you nailed your hair to the door. "It makes a good black wreath," you said. When you burnt your face and your children were afraid to look you jumped into a shiny mouth. You hoped they wouldn't see. But I saw. I saw you stirring soup inside a white shark with a picket fence for teeth. I found you locked in the same drawer you keep your aprons in. I cried for you most of the night, listening to you rustle inside my father's clock, a pinched bird with a plastic wing. I watched you struggling in another woman's hair, sprayed there, stuck and comical, like a bow. I wanted to laugh. But still, I could scream for you. I could run out of my body and leave my hands. And then, as always, you would pick them up and make somebody a nice pair of gloves. 98 driving straight through A.J. Wright alabama we watched the sun burning like a rose in the mountains and a woman's hand floating palm up in a pool. the shadow of crossed tree limbs passed over our faces. later the moon cut into the night like a golden scythe. near the border someone called our names and we turned back. 99 The Choice Lynne Savitt Her children will puncture the soles of their feet on the cloud debris of last night's party Her husband poisoned by the perfume of conversation she sweats on their dream warm bed Breakfast she watches them drowning in cornflakes their clothes saturated with milk as they slip from the side of their bowls She cannot help them She eats poetry pancakes and grows fat alone. 100 Lillith Poem #4 Lillith As Problem Solver Lynne Savitt Lillith, lilac lace shawl bounding the grassy hills in her filigree wheelchair Propelled by her womanly strength waving at the hyacinths blowing kisses to the willows Ringlets whipping the wind Infant daisies caught in her spinning wheels Heading for the cliff Lillith, sneezing poems in her lace cuffs Singing music box songs when her key is wound Rolling over the fingers of playing children Watching the eyebrows grow back on emaciated models Spray painting air ferns as she whizzes by Heading for the cliff And when the brake sticks she will bound over the edge air filled hoop skirts falling slowly breaking one bone at a time 101 Lillith Poem #5 Lynne Savitt noon Lillith doing ducks, churches, birds shadows masterpiece shadows on the headstones at the cemetery midnight lighting jasmine burning candles flickering wall glows she sways creates magic movements he takes the sun for a bookmark hangs candles on his key ring wears a vest of lightbulbs steal the light pocket the sun blow out the flame Lillith will make shadows wherever she goes 102 George Washington Meets The King of eSpain (on the Magellanic Clouds) Diane Wakoski for John Martin John, no one understands that I always have my tongue in cheek, checking out all possibilities of my own foolishness. Silence is the media for beauty. I think this, walking through Barbara's beautiful carpeted rooms, arranged by her own fingers of Lalique glass and ordered into the serenity I search for in poetry or music. Heavens! Where did you think the Magellanic Clouds were, if not in your own living room. And surely, you know that when I wander through yr house pausing to understand the muted amber or puzzled blue surface of some opaque piece of glass, that I am looking not for the King of Spain but a glass slipper I might slip on my tan foot and walk elegantly out of the state of California, wearing. But of course what I find is the print of the King of Spain by your swimming pool. No, don't worry. He isn't after your princess-like teenage daughter, whose tall strawberry blond head is a little gold coin, and whose hands will make bread for poets beside her mother's. He's there, in exile, to follow me and give me the sun in the form of a flamenco dancer, black-hatted and tapping against my castanet lips, with words of Peter Quince, arguments to Ramon Fernandez. Even the clouds become shellaced and hard, wood clacking together, little round gold suns moving in my fingers. You wonder, in your white adobe walls, gleaming against the terra cotta roof, all of Spain's wealth of arch and patio curving into your books. 103 how I, the often silent daughter of the silent father of our country come to your house to meet these men, fathers, lovers, protectors, soldiers, captains, my glass tongue like a bud vase holding Lorca's bloody roses and the gardenias of my own white face. But they are what poetry is. The exotic oranges and palms, the flamenco-dancing sun beside the bunting of a stiff portly pearshaped president understanding that we must each survey our own wealth to acquire it. And no, John, no one understands my castanet tongue, in its cheek of fire, clicking, laughing, clicking, laughing, while I watch from my window. Waiting to see George Washington ride up on a chestnut, to the King of Spain where he walks in the landscape of my imagination, and my tongue as fragmented as the rings of Saturn, the grey rocks clicking together, as it moves, laughing, clicking, laughing, clicking when you say "go on to something new." Not understanding, that the new is the old viewed and reviewed, viewed over and over: George Washington rides up. His chestnut casts a shadow. The King of Spain looks up. He stands in gold light. My tongue of glass melts and becomes a tongue of fire. It is in my cheek and I am laughing, clicking the castanets of my uncle, the flamenco dancer, of my lover, the sun, dancing brilliantly into my morning window with the sun, the fire to which I am married, the ring of it I carry with my keys, the ring of fire I sleep in waiting with laughter for the same old thing, the only thing which is new, love, poetry, music, 104 God, they all sit in your house, the Magellanic Clouds weaving into your rugs, fluffing the feathers of your cockatoos, rippling the fans of your aenemones, keeping in control the fire of my tongue in cheek that, yes, no one, John, as you say, understands. copyright by Diane Wakoski 1976 105 Contributors Ann Barclay takes graduate courses in French and English at MSU. Greta Bolger is an undergraduate English major at MSU. She has double jointed thumbs and blushes a lot. Ray Cosseboom lives in Boston. The poem included here is from an unpublished collection of his entitled Newport, Maine. Tom Cwynar is a senior at MSU majoring in English. His poems have appeared in several college anthologies. H.E. Francis won the Iowa School of Letters Award for short fiction for his collection of stories, entitled The Itinerary of Beggars. He publishes internationally and is working on a novel. Larry Gabriel won first prize in the 1975 MSU Creative Writing Contest for his poems. The last we heard, he was living in and janitoring for a church. Joseph Garrison teaches literature and creative writing at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. He is working on a book-length manuscript entitled Waiting for the Sky to Clear. Alison Hedlund will soon be a student of the world. She had a lot of fun putting together these contributors' notes. John Hohlt won honorable mention for his poems in the 1975 MSU Creative Writing Contest. He is presently studying law at the University of Texas at Austin. Phyllis Janowitz teaches poetry at the Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge. Her book, Lovers, Loners, and Other Losers, is forthcoming. Jim Kalmbach won third prize in the 1976 MSU Creative Writing Contest. He is presently a doctoral candidate here. Krysia Kolodziej is a former editor of Moving Out. She is now in Boston, generally enjoying life. Mark Lester has two eyeglass prescriptions: one for focusing on infinity, and the other on the sublime. Midori Matsumoto is an undergraduate English major at MSU. She would like you to call her up at 351-4139 and tell her how you like her poems. R.K. Meiners is a professor of English at MSU who plays a mean banjo. His book of poems is entitled Journeying Back to the World. Joland Mohr lives near Cottonwood, Minnesota, and teaches at Southwest State University in Marshall. Pat Mooney's poems won second prize in the 1975 Creative Writing Contest. She presently lives in San Francisco, and sails and writes as much as possible. Andrea Moorhead is a past editor of Osiris and is currently working on a series of articles on modern French poetry. She lives in Schenectady, New York. Susan Rea is a former teacher presently writing full time. Deborah Richardson's poems have appeared in an incredible number of publications. Her first book is entitled The Wish to Die. Michael Rutka shared first place in poetry in the 1976 Creative Writing Contest. Lynne Savitt is an editor of Gravida who only types with one finger. She has been published in many small magazines. . Wendy Schulz is a student in Justin Morrill College at MSU. R. Sue Smith won third place in fiction in the 1976 Creative Writing Contest. Del Sneller has been Director of Creative Writing at Brescia College. He now publishes a lot and works in a factory. Joan Stroud lives in Connecticut and has been writing for ten years. R.D. Swets lives and works as a typesetter in Grand Rapids. Lee Upton shared first place in poetry in the 1976 Creative Writing Contest. Diane Wakoski is presently poet-in-residence at MSU. Her latest book of poems is entitled Virtuoso Literature for Two and Four Hands. The poem in this issue will be published in her forthcoming book from Black Sparrow Press. A.J. Wright is a rock and jazz music fanatic studying in Alabama. Janice Zerfas is working on her M.A. in English at MSU. RCR Staff Editorial Board Greta Bolger Jeanice Dagher Alison Hedlund Rebecca Howard Cynthia Lamberts Patricia Polach Design Amy Rufus Miller Illustrations Chuck Knock Amy Rufus Miller RED CEDAR REVIEW is a tri-annual magazine of the arts published at Michigan State University. Manuscripts may be submitted to 325 Morrill Hall, Department of English, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 48823. Please include return postage and contributor data. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Single copies $1.50. Three issues $4.00. $1.50 $1.50