and were tossed into the bucket.
Me thinking all the while
of those early days in Yakima.
And smooth-as-silk underpants.
The lingering kind that Jeanne wore,
and Rita, Muriel, Sue, and her sister,
Cora Mae. All those girls.
Grownup now. Or worse.
I’ll say it: dead.
Radio Waves
FOR ANTONIO MACHADO
This rain has stopped, and the moon has come out.
I don’t understand the first thing about radio
waves. But I think they travel better just after
a rain, when the air is damp. Anyway, I can reach out
now and pick up Ottawa, if I want to, or Toronto.
Lately, at night, I’ve found myself
becoming slightly interested in Canadian politics
and domestic affairs. It’s true. But mostly it was their
music stations I was after. I could sit here in the chair
and listen, without having to do anything, or think.
I don’t have a TV, and I’d quit reading
the papers. At night I turned on the radio.
When I came out here I was trying to get away
from everything. Especially literature.
What that entails, and what comes after.
There is in the soul a desire for not thinking.
For being still. Coupled with this
a desire to be strict, yes, and rigorous.
But the soul is also a smooth son of a bitch,
not always trustworthy. And I forgot that.
I listened when it said, Better to sing that which is gone
and will not return than that which is still
with us and will be with us tomorrow. Or not.
And if not, that’s all right too.
It didn’t much matter, it said, if a man sang at all.
That’s the voice I listened to.
Can you imagine somebody thinking like this?
That it’s really all one and the same?
What nonsense!
But I’d think these stupid thoughts at night
as I sat in the chair and listened to my radio.
Then, Machado, your poetry!
It was a little like a middle-aged man falling
in love again. A remarkable thing to witness,
and embarrassing, too.
Silly things like putting your picture up.
And I took your book to bed with me
and slept with it near at hand. A train went by
in my dreams one night and woke me up.
And the first thing I thought, heart racing
there in the dark bedroom, was this —
It’s all right, Machado is here.
Then I could fall back to sleep again.
Today I took your book with me when I went
for my walk. “Pay attention!” you said,
when anyone asked what to do with their lives.
So I looked around and made note of everything.
Then sat down with it in the sun, in my place
beside the river where I could see the mountains.
And I closed my eyes and listened to the sound
of the water. Then I opened them and began to read
“Abel Martin’s Last Lamentations.”
This morning I thought about you hard, Machado.
And I hope, even in the face of what I know about death,
that you got the message I intended.
But it’s okay even if you didn’t. Sleep well. Rest.
Sooner or later I hope we’ll meet.
And then I can tell you these things myself.
Movement
Driving lickety-split to make the ferry!
Snow Creek and then Dog Creek
fly by in the headlights.
But the hour’s all wrong—no time to think
about the sea-run trout there.
In the lee of the mountains
something on the radio about an old woman
who travels around inside a kettle.
Indigence is at the root of our lives, yes,
but this is not right.
Cut that old woman some slack,
for God’s sake.
She’s somebody’s mother.
You there! It’s late. Imagine yourself
with the lid coming down.
The hymns and requiems. The sense of movement
as you’re borne along to the next place.
Hominy and Rain
In a little patch of ground beside
the wall of the Earth Sciences building,
a man in a canvas hat was on
his knees doing something in the rain
with some plants. Piano music
came from an upstairs window
in the building next door. Then
the music stopped.
And the window was brought down.
You told me those white blossoms
on the cherry trees in the Quad
smelled like a can of just-opened
hominy. Hominy. They reminded you
of that. This may or may not
be true. I can’t say.
I’ve lost my sense of smell,
along with any interest I may ever
have expressed in working
on my knees with plants, or
vegetables. There was a barefoot
madman with a ring in his ear
playing his guitar and singing
reggae. I remember that.
Rain puddling around his feet.
The place he’d picked to stand
had Welcome Fear
painted on the sidewalk in red letters.
At the time it seemed important
to recall the man on his knees
in front of his plants.
The blossoms. Music of one kind,
and another. Now I’m not so sure.
I can’t say, for sure.
It’s a little like some tiny cave-in,
in my brain. There’s a sense
that I’ve lost—not everything,
not everything, but far too much.
A part of my life forever.
Like hominy.
Even though your arm stayed linked
in mine. Even though that. Even
though we stood quietly in the
doorway as the rain picked up.
And watched it without saying
anything. Stood quietly.
At peace, I think. Stood watching
the rain. While the one
with the guitar played on.
The Road
What a rough night! It’s either no dreams at all,
or else a dream that may or may not be
a dream portending loss. Last night I was dropped off
without a word on a country road.
A house back in the hills showed a light
no bigger than a star.
But I was afraid to go there, and kept walking.
Then to wake up to rain striking the glass.
Flowers in a vase near the window.
The smell of coffee, and you touching your hair
with a gesture like someone who has been gone for years.
But there’s a piece of bread under the table
near your feet. And a line of ants
moving back and forth from a crack in the floor.
You’ve stopped smiling.
Do me a favor this morning. Draw the curtain and come back to bed.
Forget the coffee. We’ll pretend
we’re in a foreign country, and in love.
Fear
Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the t
elephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I’ve been told won’t bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.
Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.
Fear of psychological profiles.
Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else.
Fear of my children’s handwriting on envelopes.
Fear they’ll die before I do, and I’ll feel guilty.
Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine.
Fear of confusion.
Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone.
Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.
Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.
Fear of death.
Fear of living too long.
Fear of death.
I’ve said that.
Romanticism
(FOR LINDA GREGG,
AFTER READING “CLASSICISM”)
The nights are very unclear here.
But if the moon is full, we know it.
We feel one thing one minute,
something else the next.
The Ashtray
You could write a story about this
ashtray, for example, and a man and a
woman. But the man and woman are
always the two poles of your story.
The North Pole and the South. Every
story has these two poles—he and she.
— A. P. CHEKHOV
They’re alone at the kitchen table in her friend’s
apartment. They’ll be alone for another hour, and then
her friend will be back. Outside, it’s raining —
the rain coming down like needles, melting last week’s
snow. They’re smoking and using the ashtray … Maybe
just one of them is smoking…He’s smoking! Never
mind. Anyway, the ashtray is filling up with
cigarettes and ashes.
She’s ready to break into tears at any minute.
To plead with him, in fact, though she’s proud
and has never asked for anything in her life.
He sees what’s coming, recognizes the signs —
a catch in her voice as she brings her fingers
to her locket, the one her mother left her.
He pushes back his chair, gets up, goes over to
the window … He wishes it were tomorrow and he
were at the races. He wishes he was out walking,
using his umbrella … He strokes his mustache
and wishes he were anywhere except here. But
he doesn’t have any choice in the matter. He’s got
to put a good face on this for everybody’s sake.
God knows, he never meant for things to come
to this. But it’s sink or swim now. A wrong
move and he stands to lose her friend, too.
Her breathing slows. She watches him but
doesn’t say anything. She knows, or thinks she
knows, where this is leading. She passes a hand
over her eyes, leans forward and puts her head
in her hands. She’s done this a few times
before, but has no idea it’s something
that drives him wild. He looks away and grinds
his teeth. He lights a cigarette, shakes out
the match, stands a minute longer at the window.
Then walks back to the table and sits
down with a sigh. He drops the match in the ashtray.
She reaches for his hand, and he lets her
take it. Why not? Where’s the harm?
Let her. His mind’s made up. She covers his
fingers with kisses, tears fall onto his wrist.
He draws on his cigarette and looks at her
as a man would look indifferently on
a cloud, a tree, or a field of oats at sunset.
He narrows his eyes against the smoke. From time
to time he uses the ashtray as he waits
for her to finish weeping.
Still Looking Out for
Number One
Now that you’ve gone away for five days,
I’ll smoke all the cigarettes I want,
where I want. Make biscuits and eat them
with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge
myself. Walk on the beach if I feel
like it. And I feel like it, alone and
thinking about when I was young. The people
then who loved me beyond reason.
And how I loved them above all others.
Except one. I’m saying I’ll do everything
I want here while you’re away!
But there’s one thing I won’t do.
I won’t sleep in our bed without you.
No. It doesn’t please me to do so.
I’ll sleep where I damn well feel like it —
where I sleep best when you’re away
and I can’t hold you the way I do.
On the broken sofa in my study.
Where Water Comes Together
with Other Water
I love creeks and the music they make.
And rills, in glades and meadows, before
they have a chance to become creeks.
I may even love them best of all
for their secrecy. I almost forgot
to say something about the source!
Can anything be more wonderful than a spring?
But the big streams have my heart too.
And the places streams flow into rivers.
The open mouths of rivers where they join the sea.
The places where water comes together
with other water. Those places stand out
in my mind like holy places.
But these coastal rivers!
I love them the way some men love horses
or glamorous women. I have a thing
for this cold swift water.
Just looking at it makes my blood run
and my skin tingle. I could sit
and watch these rivers for hours.
Not one of them like any other.
I’m 45 years old today.
Would anyone believe it if I said
I was once 35?
My heart empty and sere at 35!
Five more years had to pass
before it began to flow again.
I’ll take all the time I please this afternoon
before leaving my place alongside this river.
It pleases me, loving rivers.
Loving them all the way back
to their source.
Loving everything that increases me.
II
Happiness
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into thi
s.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
The Old Days
You’d dozed in front of the TV
but you hadn’t been to bed yet
when you called. I was asleep,
or nearly, when the phone rang.
You wanted to tell me you’d thrown
a party. And I was missed.
It was like the old days, you
said, and laughed.
Dinner was a disaster.
Everybody dead drunk by the time
food hit the table. People
were having a good time, a great
time, a hell of a time, until
somebody took somebody
else’s fiancée upstairs. Then
somebody pulled a knife.
But you got in front of the guy
as he was going upstairs
and talked him down.
Disaster narrowly averted,
you said, and laughed again.
You didn’t remember much else
of what happened after that.
People got into their coats
and began to leave. You
must have dropped off for a few
minutes in front of the TV
because it was screaming at you
to get it a drink when you woke up.
Anyway, you’re in Pittsburgh,
and I’m in here in this
little town on the other side
of the country. Most everyone
has cleared out of our lives now.
You wanted to call me up and say hello.
To say you were thinking
about me, and of the old days.
To say you were missing me.
It was then I remembered
back to those days and how
telephones used to jump when they rang.
And the people who would come
in those early-morning hours
to pound on the door in alarm.
Never mind the alarm felt inside.
I remembered that, and gravy dinners.
Knives lying around, waiting
for trouble. Going to bed
and hoping I wouldn’t wake up.
I love you, Bro, you said.
And then a sob passed
between us. I took hold
of the receiver as if
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