I.
I'm up before you
of course
and pleased with the summer morning
sunny and breezy
that will welcome you
when you wake
and then you do
and I am
striving for lightness
and seating everyone around the table
though I can see now
its really wedged here
and too tight
in this corner
and suddenly its thundering
and then raining
and its dripping on you
and everyone
and I am rolling closed windows
bumping heads
and invading space
awkwardly
seeing to your comfort
but making a mess
and having to talk too much
and move too much
and explain too much
I don't know how it got from my intent
to be quiet
and graceful
inviting your space
to join the presence of my space
relaxed
and roomy
to this
II.
But of course there is the rest of the room
all beyond us
and I think
with great relief
here is the thing I forgot
here is where its easy now
just spread out
and I invite you all
to do it
you here
to this yellow chair
and you here
to the corner of the soft blue couch
nestle in
and you
over here
to the old rocker
it suits you
all of us
can expand into it
further in
and leave the storm
to nag the windows
and table
we can leave it to its own
cold and dripping
self
III.
But of course
since this is the way things go
there will be a nearly invisibly
but clearly saturated
spot on the rug
something offal
and foul
and soaking
so far beyond what you can do
with your dishrag to help
and that rocker
will keep loosing a stay
and catching on the wall
there isn't really room for a rocker
in here
and the couch is
too old and dusty for you
its soft depths
and fabric
a bane for your back
and nose
and I have to think
who would choose to populate
a room in this way
IV.
And of course
that's the point
no one
populated it
it just
came to be this way
over a long time
it just happened this way
that's all
and some of you
are going to get up
and help
and move the table out
away from the windows
and dry it
and pull the rocker in
and I will tend to the horrible spot
and smell on the rug
though I think it is
your dog that did it
and some of you
will be irritable
and know
your good time
is ruined
and I leave you
to yourselves
this is still
my good space
and I am home here
and I still
invite you
to join my space
in whatever way you want
have your own
good time
or pack up
and go home
I'll still love you
and send you postcards
V.
about when the rain stopped
and we went and picked blackberries
washed clean
for the oatmeal
and caught worms
for fishing
and got the picture
of us all on the dock
with a double rainbow
and the yellow hydroplane
flying through it.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Untitled
Later in the day its
so pleasant to stand
on the grass that I've just mowed
and take in the afternoon
the far low mountains
the sweet smell of ruined vegetation
commingled so nicely
with the warm and humid and fertile scent
of the lake
we are at our full heights
pleasing ourselves by looking far out
across the water
I see what you don't
two heads in the water
now one
I don't stop to think if I am right
or certain
ring the bell
I yell to you
running the length of the dock
in three strides
ring it!
and I am taking off and throwing off
everything except my
black underwear and bra
and I would dive were it not
so shallow
so a hand down
and a hop in
and three more strides
before a dolphin dive beginning
my sloppy crawl
would the boat have been faster?
you raise your arm
and begin to ring
the silver schoolhouse bell
I showed it to you yesterday
on the mantle
and you knew where to find it
you did not
stop to ask
and you don't
ask now
and somehow this
may save us
I cannot explain
or look back
to see how you are doing
I have to do this
and hope the neighbors dotting the shore
remember this old code
in this remote place
one to bring the boat
one to bring the warm blankets
one to swim out
and help me
you're a part of it
or just roped in
either way
this is
sometimes
what happens
I go on
hoping
neither above or below
finding the air
only by feel
no time to waste
and the sound of you
ringing
and ringing
and ringing
in my ears.
so pleasant to stand
on the grass that I've just mowed
and take in the afternoon
the far low mountains
the sweet smell of ruined vegetation
commingled so nicely
with the warm and humid and fertile scent
of the lake
we are at our full heights
pleasing ourselves by looking far out
across the water
I see what you don't
two heads in the water
now one
I don't stop to think if I am right
or certain
ring the bell
I yell to you
running the length of the dock
in three strides
ring it!
and I am taking off and throwing off
everything except my
black underwear and bra
and I would dive were it not
so shallow
so a hand down
and a hop in
and three more strides
before a dolphin dive beginning
my sloppy crawl
would the boat have been faster?
you raise your arm
and begin to ring
the silver schoolhouse bell
I showed it to you yesterday
on the mantle
and you knew where to find it
you did not
stop to ask
and you don't
ask now
and somehow this
may save us
I cannot explain
or look back
to see how you are doing
I have to do this
and hope the neighbors dotting the shore
remember this old code
in this remote place
one to bring the boat
one to bring the warm blankets
one to swim out
and help me
you're a part of it
or just roped in
either way
this is
sometimes
what happens
I go on
hoping
neither above or below
finding the air
only by feel
no time to waste
and the sound of you
ringing
and ringing
and ringing
in my ears.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Untitled
We both walk out the
back door with a screen door
bang
first you
then me
you out here
to chop the wood
and me to do
I don't know what.
You begin
with earnest intention
and I wander
on the grass
looking at the first of
the yellow needles
brought down from the pines
by last night's storm.
This massive old pile will
take you all day to split
and you will only see
that one thing
to do with it. I consider
educating you
and don't
you will
or won't
come to it
in your own time
punky soft wood
good for breaking gently
in your hands
to make homes for
ants and salamanders
and the like
hard dry wood
for lighting
and setting on fire
and for the act of burning
and for heat
and also warmth
green wood
good for nothing
except patience
to become something else
or just for whittling down
into nothing
a long examination
of its character
and properties
the heart of it
beyond the meat of it
our little project
will take us the day.
back door with a screen door
bang
first you
then me
you out here
to chop the wood
and me to do
I don't know what.
You begin
with earnest intention
and I wander
on the grass
looking at the first of
the yellow needles
brought down from the pines
by last night's storm.
This massive old pile will
take you all day to split
and you will only see
that one thing
to do with it. I consider
educating you
and don't
you will
or won't
come to it
in your own time
punky soft wood
good for breaking gently
in your hands
to make homes for
ants and salamanders
and the like
hard dry wood
for lighting
and setting on fire
and for the act of burning
and for heat
and also warmth
green wood
good for nothing
except patience
to become something else
or just for whittling down
into nothing
a long examination
of its character
and properties
the heart of it
beyond the meat of it
our little project
will take us the day.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Advice
Animals know
when its time to die
they say
and if they can escape
their living rooms
nested blankets
favorite toys
and devoted people
crying over
and nursing them
and make it down the stairs
and out the door
they will
and curl up
under a bush
in the front yard
with traffic
going by
not come
if called
disobedient
in the end
bent on
the time it is
the thing they must do
obeying
their own nature
over your wants
and needs
and demands on them
for once
throw open the front door
and the back door
in January
don't complain
put coats on
and clear a path
put it aside
give a pat
say travel well
help them out
onto the hard ground
under the sparrow-shit covered
forsythia
just shut up
and get out of
the way
take your wailing
somewhere else
don't make it
harder
be of goddamn
actual help
this is not
your show
this is not
yours
nothing you ever did
entitles you now
in the end
its their end
like you said
so many times
leave it.
when its time to die
they say
and if they can escape
their living rooms
nested blankets
favorite toys
and devoted people
crying over
and nursing them
and make it down the stairs
and out the door
they will
and curl up
under a bush
in the front yard
with traffic
going by
not come
if called
disobedient
in the end
bent on
the time it is
the thing they must do
obeying
their own nature
over your wants
and needs
and demands on them
for once
throw open the front door
and the back door
in January
don't complain
put coats on
and clear a path
put it aside
give a pat
say travel well
help them out
onto the hard ground
under the sparrow-shit covered
forsythia
just shut up
and get out of
the way
take your wailing
somewhere else
don't make it
harder
be of goddamn
actual help
this is not
your show
this is not
yours
nothing you ever did
entitles you now
in the end
its their end
like you said
so many times
leave it.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Its Still There
I was friends for awhile with a guy I knew from high school who happened to end up at the same graduate school program I was in. He was an odd guy in high school and he was an odd guy in graduate school too. A loner but not a burnout. The opposite of that. Intense and focused in a strange and quiet way. In high school he wanted to be a mortician and of course in high school that earned him a lot of shit and a lot of crap too.
We were in the same biostatistics class. Jeff was a medical student, and I was a candidate for a Master's in Public Health degree. It was a very hard class and he was better at it than me, and he was generous with helping me out with little side explanations. So I took to always sitting with him and we would get lattes at the cart before class and he and the help and the lattes made it not such a bad experience. It was a cavernous lecture hall with bad lighting and peeling little wooden paddle desks, the kind that flip and fold up and down, and it was sort of a cozy thing we had going.
What happened to the mortician thing, I asked him one morning, you know the med student thing seems to be quite the other way to go. He laughed and said, I still want to do that, that's still my thing. I'm just doing this first. And I said, really. And then his pager went off, and he gave me a longish look, that same quiet/strange thing I remembered about him from high school. And he asked, do you want to see what I mean? I thought oh, he's going to go show me his cadaver, and that's fine, I get it, and he's been nice to me and helpful and all so I'll go see it even though I've seen cadavers a bunch of times before. So I said, sure.
The lecture hall emptied into a corridor that if you followed it the whole way would take you through more than a mile of university buildings all the way to the University Hospital ER, I think it was maybe the longest corridor in the US or something at the time. And we walked it, not saying much, all the way to the ER. Jeff took me to a curtained area right in front of the nurses' station, which is where they put all the really dicey cases that need the most attention. And before I could say, aren't we going to your cadaver, he slipped a purple lanyard with a blank white plastic tag over my neck and took me by the hand and pulled me behind the curtain, just as about three or four doctors and nurses were walking out, and snapping off their gloves. They looked at him and briefly nodded; they did not even seem to register me. Game over. Dead guy. Dead bluish guy on a gurney, still hooked up to monitors, one monitor the classic flatline, and one monitor doing a little something still.
Sternal rub, Jeff said, from behind, softly into my ear, his breath like a real touch on my skin, and in my hair. What, I said, not processing efficiently at this point, and he said it again, in just the same lover-like way, Sternal rub. And he put his hand on my hand, and guided it onto the dead guy's chest, and curled his fingers around my hand to make a fist, and my heart was pounding and I to be honest felt a little undone by his touch and the situation in general and the not knowing what the hell was happening, or happening next. And with that he pushed down on my hand, hard, and rubbed my knuckles deep back and forth and back and forth on the guy's naked dead chest, right on his breastbone, my knuckles catching and then slipping over these little ridges and divots in the bone. And then there it was: the dead guy arched his back just a little, moved the tiniest fraction to the left, a little shift, but away from my hand, and his hand over my hand.
That's how you know it, Jeff said, and his eyes were no longer on me, but on the guy, who I could see now was dead, but not actually dead, just dead for most purposes. Jeff's eyes shone, and he looked pale, and alive, and electric. He shifted his eyes onto me, and then away, and I knew I wasn't there, that this was a love, an odd love, a love of a thing inbetween, and that you can't explain, and that costs you shit and crap in high school, and that you have to find your way to through conventional routes, like biostatistics, and schools, and programs, and conventional people, to get close to, sidle up close to, to see it, and touch it, and adore it, and feel it, and whisper in its ear, like a lover.
That's how you know its still there.
We were in the same biostatistics class. Jeff was a medical student, and I was a candidate for a Master's in Public Health degree. It was a very hard class and he was better at it than me, and he was generous with helping me out with little side explanations. So I took to always sitting with him and we would get lattes at the cart before class and he and the help and the lattes made it not such a bad experience. It was a cavernous lecture hall with bad lighting and peeling little wooden paddle desks, the kind that flip and fold up and down, and it was sort of a cozy thing we had going.
What happened to the mortician thing, I asked him one morning, you know the med student thing seems to be quite the other way to go. He laughed and said, I still want to do that, that's still my thing. I'm just doing this first. And I said, really. And then his pager went off, and he gave me a longish look, that same quiet/strange thing I remembered about him from high school. And he asked, do you want to see what I mean? I thought oh, he's going to go show me his cadaver, and that's fine, I get it, and he's been nice to me and helpful and all so I'll go see it even though I've seen cadavers a bunch of times before. So I said, sure.
The lecture hall emptied into a corridor that if you followed it the whole way would take you through more than a mile of university buildings all the way to the University Hospital ER, I think it was maybe the longest corridor in the US or something at the time. And we walked it, not saying much, all the way to the ER. Jeff took me to a curtained area right in front of the nurses' station, which is where they put all the really dicey cases that need the most attention. And before I could say, aren't we going to your cadaver, he slipped a purple lanyard with a blank white plastic tag over my neck and took me by the hand and pulled me behind the curtain, just as about three or four doctors and nurses were walking out, and snapping off their gloves. They looked at him and briefly nodded; they did not even seem to register me. Game over. Dead guy. Dead bluish guy on a gurney, still hooked up to monitors, one monitor the classic flatline, and one monitor doing a little something still.
Sternal rub, Jeff said, from behind, softly into my ear, his breath like a real touch on my skin, and in my hair. What, I said, not processing efficiently at this point, and he said it again, in just the same lover-like way, Sternal rub. And he put his hand on my hand, and guided it onto the dead guy's chest, and curled his fingers around my hand to make a fist, and my heart was pounding and I to be honest felt a little undone by his touch and the situation in general and the not knowing what the hell was happening, or happening next. And with that he pushed down on my hand, hard, and rubbed my knuckles deep back and forth and back and forth on the guy's naked dead chest, right on his breastbone, my knuckles catching and then slipping over these little ridges and divots in the bone. And then there it was: the dead guy arched his back just a little, moved the tiniest fraction to the left, a little shift, but away from my hand, and his hand over my hand.
That's how you know it, Jeff said, and his eyes were no longer on me, but on the guy, who I could see now was dead, but not actually dead, just dead for most purposes. Jeff's eyes shone, and he looked pale, and alive, and electric. He shifted his eyes onto me, and then away, and I knew I wasn't there, that this was a love, an odd love, a love of a thing inbetween, and that you can't explain, and that costs you shit and crap in high school, and that you have to find your way to through conventional routes, like biostatistics, and schools, and programs, and conventional people, to get close to, sidle up close to, to see it, and touch it, and adore it, and feel it, and whisper in its ear, like a lover.
That's how you know its still there.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Locked Up
I'm not here. I am
over there
with the big guy
with the big smile
and the johnnie on
and his arms spread wide
walking to you
with no idea
that today is today
and that you are you
and I am me
I'm not here
watching you
walk into his
open arms
your smallish head
now comfortably
in his curled palm
I'm not here
looking back through
the windows
of double locked doors
having failed
or succeeded
I'm not here
but I am everywhere
ten minutes
ten years
the ten seconds it took
total
to touch you hello
and goodbye
I'm not here
or over there
I am waiting
for the elevator
to take me down
and away
and back
to you
and back
to him
and back
again
and back again.
over there
with the big guy
with the big smile
and the johnnie on
and his arms spread wide
walking to you
with no idea
that today is today
and that you are you
and I am me
I'm not here
watching you
walk into his
open arms
your smallish head
now comfortably
in his curled palm
I'm not here
looking back through
the windows
of double locked doors
having failed
or succeeded
I'm not here
but I am everywhere
ten minutes
ten years
the ten seconds it took
total
to touch you hello
and goodbye
I'm not here
or over there
I am waiting
for the elevator
to take me down
and away
and back
to you
and back
to him
and back
again
and back again.
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