LACKLUSTER
A good varnish catches light's lust
on the surface as if it shined
up from the wood's core. Rage old man,
you have all the time that you need
while the light dwindles, for even
the bones left beneath your flesh's lack
call aloud to be cradled. They
know no arms have closed the full ring
around their thousandfold hungers,
the I alone unto itself.
Old man dying, you lie with god
on your tube-strung bed. Each of you
tries to figure who tells wholly
the unvarnished truth about need,
and its lacks. You have been at it
for eighty years. Neither budges.
Wasting away, even so, you
have just enough time left to get
down to, or rather, go back to,
the I alone unto itself.
Hate is not a thing one can with
ease make light of. It lasts well, like
names burned onto the child's first brain,
varnished over, pressed back to a
lusterless void, a churning lack.
But as days crumble, hate calls up
from out of the depths. It wants its
unvarnished needs told. Batter me,
father, no more, at last the small
I cries out alone to itself.
Some days you seem to want to
rear up out of the bed and slap
visitors away, then speaking
from the luster of time's long reach
to no one in the room, you say,
I do not hate you, I simply
can't stand the way that you behave.
Some days beneath the slow drip of
the tubes, your wan body shrinks,
the I alone into itself
and says nothing to anyone
at all. Three times the doctor warned
you would not again see dawn. But
weeks lingered on. You have it all
at last figured out: the devil
looked you over good and three times
struck you out, not his type, so you
lie now with god, the tube-strung bed.
One of you will say when the I
will turn alone into itself.
EMMA MAE TELEPHONES HER GRANDS
Emma Mae starts her day early, even
before the school busses run. Robed in her old
terry, knee socks and houseshoes, with her coffee
she sits at the table facing the sunrise
and phones each of her grands—eleven of them now
in seven cities. In three states. Good Morning.
Each voice is her proof that now it is morning
and that night’s slow drift of memories, even
the fond ones, is at last done. That now is now.
The favorite one, Martin, is thirteen years old.
Is that you, Granny, sounding like wind? Sunrise
fills the trees. His cracking voice teases. Coffee
braces her, its bitter tang, as good coffee
should. How many years , she wonders, each morning
greeted by the same joke? On the grass, sunrise
streaks long sharp shadows. Enough’s enough. Even
Emma Mae wants to shout back: You think I’m old,
boy, I’m not; I’m dying. This morning, right now,
I’m facing it alone. What’s the big joke now
anyway, boy. Abruptly she jerks, coffee
streams over the table, splashing down on old
tiles, scalding her knees. You ready this morning
for school ,boy, got that homework done, even
the math? Her voice halts, waits. Then: Is the sunrise
there so gorgeous you want to cry? Is your sunrise
enough to take your breath right out of you? Now
the cracking voice protests: Granny, I ain’t even
know what you’re talking about, while the coffee
soaking her lap gets strange and cold. This morning
Emma Mae begins to laugh, and like an old
devil, slams down the phone. I’m right, I’m not old,
and the way shadows streak the grass, the sunrise
does sort of take away your breath. The morning
is good, so there! Brings closure to night’s drift. Now
the devil in her wants to let the coffee
stay, the stain to streak the floor with an even
sheen like silk, even to brew a fresh pot, her mother’s old
mug, and out on the stoop to sip the fresh coffee at sunrise
like her mother did. But now her devil just says: Hi there, morning!
THAT WHICH IS OWED TO DEATH
Fragments 1-4
1.
the milk in the glass
on the garden table curdles
in the sun. By evening
a nimbus of gnats swarms
above it. It was left
in a rush as was the radio
too, crackling between stations
on the ledge in the kitchen
2.
a scar
on the heart; the gasp, that is,
which comes with every phone ring
at a late dark hour; the racing pulse
in the chest
3.
he has done
well—exceedingly well—
this getting himself prepared,
as if each day were a one-
day bloom, at nightfall
to shrivel, and yet so exceedingly
to be gazed upon, hour by hour,
even under a hot mid-day sun;
for even he still believes
that desires can be
not merely savored
but saved
4.
driftwood,
gulls, the unanswerable
voice of the waves