by Gil Adamson
He leans on the tripod, leans and pushes. It will do for a crutch. His hand knocks his side and his cloak puffs dust, like the stomach of a bear when it stands, sniffing the air, shoulders hunched in the cold summer. Sleep. He wants a dream where he is someone else, a dream to leave his skin behind. One lung cured, the other reduced to filaments and lace curtain, closed and empty and wintering in him. The tall man, from a distance, appears bent to shout abuse, one last furious time. But there is no shouting here, in this body. He turns, pushes into his bedroom.
In the morning his girlfriend goes by on a gurney, riding the bottom tier, elaborately wrapped, a sandwich delivered in its own linen napkin.
At night, he photographs himself with a flash while the others sleep in their dark rooms. He brings himself dripping from the bath, face coming first over the black cloak, and then his hand with the remote, held dainty, thumb saying: Now.
His girlfriend’s children laugh with the staff in the kitchen and he can’t find a way to understand. They laugh down a long hall, laugh on the yellow carpet. Shock goes through him, burning light. And he knows it is true: we last longer on paper. She is there in the camera, undeveloped, smiling still.
He is sleeping with one lung open still, dreaming of lakes clear to the bottom, thick with cold, crystalled to a clear honey, where children dip a hand and bring back wrist only. They hold up stumps to him and scream. Here flowers hang and fall, to snap off like fireflies, vanish.
He chokes, a palsied half-waking, he knows: it is here, soft feet leaving no mark on the marble forecourt, on the rough hemp mat at the door, a long, gentle nose pressing screen, sniffing keyhole, the long, smooth edge of door. The way in.
In the hall now, wild, the dreamer shouting out the dream’s story, waking the pale ladies from their fevers, racketing down the wide stairs, legs churning like logs in white water. He drops his key, tripod, even the camera tumbling to the marble floor, the dark box splintering to reveal a glint of lens, eyeing the floor.
And he’s in the dark garden, wheeling his arms, striking at the frost-stunted fruit, the cramped vine, all nature twisted and sore. He rages after imagination where it sweeps into trees and dark. He throws flashbulbs after it, and they pop one by one, scattering tree-shapes like needles, as if some grand thing had passed by this place, puffed, and tossed them all aside.
The dreamer in his gorgeous rage, breathes deep, shouts his body back to life.
The grass is deep, clouds hang high in the dark, and all is forgiven. In the end we see ourselves. We last longer. The night opens its mouth, and we step in.
Acknowledgements
The poem “Here’s Your Money” appeared in slightly different form in This Magazine. The title “Ashland” and the name Verken were taken from Wisconsin Death Trip, by Michael Lesy. The inspiration for “Here’s Your Money” came from the first page or so of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, by Ron Hansen. “Euphoria” or at least the idea of a euphoric fever came from my grandfather, Tony Adamson, who suffered tuberculosis for seven years and recovered. In “Trust,” the phrase “giggling up and down metal staircases” comes from the movie Ball of Fire in which old men talk lovingly about ballerinas.
The author wishes to thank the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council for their support during the writing of this book.
For my beloved mother, Kit Adamson, whose ferocious spirit, from cradle to grave, I could never live up to and will always miss.
Of course, many thanks to Michael Holmes for his kindness and support, for making this book a pleasure to publish, and for allowing me to talk about boxing.
And finally, thanks to Kevin Connolly, excellent writer, solid person, and my personal hero.
Postscript
As this is a reissue, I have the opportunity to include a kind of literary epilogue to Ashland. The books I have cited here, and the others that I was reading while writing the poems also influenced the writing of my novel The Outlander. It’s clear the general tenor of this book — the world of Ashland — radiated into the world of the novel. I used the poem “Mary” as a kind of outline for the novel, and in fact the first chapter or so bears a strong resemblance to the “plot” of the poem. But anyone who compares the two Marys will see that they are very different people, and the fictional widow has a different fate, thank goodness, than her poetic counterpart. As well, the poem “Hidden” presents an early glimpse of two of the novel’s male characters, something I hadn’t noticed until my husband pointed it out.
Gil Adamson
January 2011
GIL ADAMSON is the author of Primitive (poetry) and Help Me, Jacques Cousteau (linked short stories). Her first novel, The Outlander, was nominated for a Commonwealth Prize and the Dublin impac Award. It won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was one of the Washington Post’s top ten books of the year.