To wish

Skies are the color of blue slate, waters the tint of a camphor jar when the fisherman pulls out his coldly gleaming catch. This is the moment that divides before and after: What is your greatest wish? We know that even as he takes out the barb and throws back the fish, the edge of the sky recedes and grows more distant. His wife will make him go back more than once to ask for a boon. The stucco on their walls is a flaked and dirty white; the floor, littered with poultry droppings, the smell of things that don’t fly very far. The story never says much about her, or why she can’t seem to keep a clean house, though it has only one room and a window overlooking the outhouse. Technically they don’t own the land, but it’s at the edge of town and so far no one has made any trouble. Who can blame her for wanting a little more room? She’s had her eye on the adjacent lot, wants to plant vegetables, fruit, and flowers, sell them in the market. Whereas the scope of his ambition has always fallen across that surface of the water where he can stand, knee-deep, no further— whatever doesn’t escape through the holes in the net, he gets to keep. He doesn’t question this arrangement, believing it builds character. The fish catches both of them by surprise. Or rather, not the fish, but the possibility that it could be something more than itself. Like anything that might be equated with fate, it either changes them forever, or fixes them even more firmly in place. Overhead, millions of tiny lights adrift in that inverted bowl.

Postcard from another life

We were both on the same train, the countryside steadily unrolling green through a humid morning. There are some kinds of uncertainty that don’t ask for resolution. Like not being able to remember who fell asleep first. Or if we bought from hawkers a bag of roasted corn, or a packet of boiled quail eggs. In those days there were no toilets, not even a separate baggage coach. Someone played music from a portable radio. We were on our way to the beach, or returning from there. Everyone was on some kind of holiday though it was the middle of the week. The aisles were speckled with little bits of sand— gritty sugar sifting into our sandals. The sea was a postcard announcing itself before we arrived: its mineral smell, and then at last thin white lines of moving text glimpsed through trees.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Sandbar.

All Souls’ Day

Under every surface, the tooth of a buried
word: forgotten names for moss and salt,
schist, blunt artifacts of skin and bone

shed by reptiles in the trees’ blue shadow.
Small papery hulls and speckled stones,
a body once grafted to its exoskeleton.

In the cool interior of a nine-sided tower,
once we listened for the spirit of absent
choirs, a chant that called all doors open

to everyone who sought refuge there. Where
are the seeds the wind bore from the old
country, and what offerings do the dead

most favor? Sometimes, in our petulance, we
forget to leave them a dish on the counter,
a cup of water. Crawling through narrow

tunnels, it’s hard to track the vein of ore.
Some days, there’s a trace of metal in the air;
if not, a tenderness: night scents soaked with

the aura of distance— all that points
to heartsickness as well as destination,
pouring out of the flowers’ white throats.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Lexicology.

Everything we loved of the wild, we took

The taste of air on the tongue; remembrance
of water before it swelled with dying coral.

From inside a cocoon of flotation chambers,
easy to speak of concern for the oceans’

disappearance. From within detergent commercials,
little narratives of rescue— birds slicked

with oil, unable to fly. When windows are
tightly sealed it’s easy to love the sound

rain makes: falling through cups in a copper
chain, down into a barrel. The fat of the land,

something to purchase from warehouse clubs.
At night, on the road, when beams cut through

the darkness: the shapes of furtive creatures,
following trails of disappearing scent.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Bird-lover.

Hard choices

Tonight I manage to fill two shopping bags
with books: I’m thinning my shelves,

aiming for lighter, for less— Tomorrow
I’ll start going through closets, shed

old suits and shirts from their hangers,
fold and give them away. I imagine a house

with an airier center, uncluttered floors;
tidy drawers, before the immigrant’s penchant

for saving every little thing given or found
for a rainy day— No more assorted knick-

knacks in corners or rolls of used gift
wrap in bags. From such deep-seated memory

of want and hardship, this habit of hoarding
tinned food, good stuff, for use on another day

—that future during which we imagined we’d sit
and finally rest from our labors, from all the days

making bargain after bargain, figuring the sums
of hard choice against pleasure, ambition, or need.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Rooted.

Am I past the age of potential,

past the phase of charm-will-get-
you-past-the-bouncer at the door?

I don’t like being told I can’t
wear large hoop earrings or gold lipstick.

Don’t you ever wish you could dive
from on high into the world’s wide swoop?

Climbing up long narrow stairs used to frighten me—
I’d pause in the middle and look back down.

But a ripcord attached
to a large silk balloon is a different thing.

One day I’ll spill out the side
of a plane just to try a kind of weightlessness.

I close my eyes— every day,
so much at which to practice being fearless.

And in the distance, fields or crop
circles or terraces becoming legible like writing.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Stroke.

Last known residence

I will never again wake up in the house where I grew up; or look at islands of mold stippling maps across the ceiling. Before it was sold to the owners of all souls, we tried valiantly to maintain it. The oils from our feet lovingly polished the floor and the dining room’s mismatched tiles of marble. Two cracked urns wreathed with cloisonné dragons left their footprints on the porch. What it lacked in insulation, we used to make up for by rubbing our bodies together. What fires we made, under three wool blankets during the coldest nights of the year! For safety, each window had a pair of metal hooks— one at the top and one at the bottom; and the doors were barred from the inside at night. This was necessary for the piano to feel able to emerge from under its hand-sewn cover of mustard yellow flannel. Then we could gather around it and begin undoing the stays wound around our throats. When we cried, clouds gathered in the room waiting to absorb the sorrow. Then they rippled through the corridors before slipping through the grilles. We watched them float higher and higher. We waved our hands in the way we do when someone we are fond of is going away.

Here one moment

When have you witnessed a body quietly exit
the world? Once, at Christmas eve mass,
I saw a man in the back of the church

crumple to the floor. His head hit the edge
of the pew and made a muffled yet audible
sound. A small circle formed around him—

someone felt for a heartbeat, loosened buttons;
another called for an ambulance. At a different
time, a couple crossing a hotel lobby; then

the man slowly trailing behind. The woman
doesn’t notice; her stride unbroken, purposeful.
He extends a wavering arm as if to hail a cab

as his steps slur. The bellman notices and runs
across the room. He catches him, just as he loses
consciousness under the cascade of chandelier

icicles. Faint chime of elevator doors opening
or closing. Outside in the bushes, in the hold
of their little boats, fireflies bearing their own
cold light: pale frequencies pulsing green and gold.

 

In response to Via Negativa: R.E.M..

Aftertaste

Dusky aroma of roast, smoky warmth
like tobacco; dented pot percolating
on the stove, or compact machine
hissing softly on the counter.
I used to drink four to five cups
every day, the last one near midnight,
poring over student work and grading.
But lately, I’ve tried to cut back
on my consumption— none on my way
out to work, mornings darker now
every day as the year approaches
winter. Perhaps one cup at noon,
to break the rhythm of thought
and writing, writing and thinking
and reading; sometimes with the radio on,
so then there’s news of what latest calamity
worse than weather is fallen on our heads,
wrought by the terrible agencies at work
in the world. Sometimes the phone rings,
abrupt interruption: demanding I listen
to any number of things I couldn’t have
anticipated. These by themselves are enough
to trigger palpitations, the jittery hand
dropping pens and keys for the umpteenth
time, spilling water on the table.
On weekends I nurse the one mug poured
at breakfast throughout the day, taking it
with me as I clean and put furniture
in order, setting it down as I take
clothes out of the dryer; or by the sink
as I mince garlic and chop onions. It’ll have
gone cold by then— But I drink as if measuring
time with each small bitter mouthful: reminder
of the unutterable that shadows each act
we think is the moment’s most urgent occupation;
of the solitude which the tongue understands,
marked by its flavor most deeply, above all others.