Of a person the stage director had cleverly
Represented as an invisible royal presence,
Haughty, deceitful, probably an early role
Model not perfected until a decade later
At the college grill’s monthly Gay Night …
But that was two intermissions further along.
Back in the preteen’s cellar theater—so like
The attic’s erotics in which, as in dreams,
One is always the protagonist—I couldn’t have
Guessed the greasepaint had also smeared on
A coarseness and meanness I perpetuated
Out of timidity, a fear of reproducing myself
Except as someone else, someone noble
If warted, unafraid because unaware
I had already started out on the wrong foot
By supposing I was safe with a secret life,
Something so ordinary as wanting to please,
Wanting to hide in the sources of pleasure.
II. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
At an age when the extra baggage is the paraphernalia
Of parents, both of whom—if only I’d had to—
Would already have been packed and labeled
NOT WANTED ON VOYAGE, I was almost on my own,
Fifteen, aboard the Queen Mary, feeling
The mattress in my stateroom’s upper berth
For lumps and staring out the porthole
Opposite at the alluring distant shores
Of New Jersey. Tugs were backing us out
Of everything familiar. It was time to shave.
While my bunkmates—this was a chaperoned
Grand Tour for what the brochure had termed
“Precocious” adolescents—were crowding
The promenade deck to watch Lady Liberty wave
Goodbye, I was at the tiny sink’s mirror,
Staring at my own precociousness,
The delicate but distinct shadow of fuzz
Above my lip and the half-dozen stray
Hairs, a few here, a few there, but enough
To convince me the first bold step
To adulthood was to lather it all up
For the safety razor I had purchased
From a druggist who’d squinted and shrugged.
I was alone. I was ready. I had seen the ads
And the actors, had often sat on the tub’s edge
To study my father’s assured technique.
I knew the stuttering downward stroke,
The rising slow-motion flick of the wrist.
I had laid out a version of my newly sophisticated
Self on someone else’s bed: my dark suit,
My wash-and-wear shirt and regimental tie.
There were still two hours before the Captain’s
Bon Voyage Dinner. I had long since scanned
The passenger list and devised a flexible
Introduction with just enough flattery and French
In it to impress anyone standing nearby
Who overheard half of it. Time to shave.
From the hissing aerosol can shot a gob
Of foam I petted my face with, the double-sided
Blade was clamped into place, and I cocked
My head for a better look at a ragged
Sideburn where, clearing my throat, I tentatively began.
What little there was yielded without a struggle,
When suddenly there was a screw loose,
Or the bow thruster backfired or the rudder reeled—
Something jammed and the ship seized up
With intermittent convulsions I decided
Unwisely to ignore until several red alerts
On cheek and chin demanded that I stop.
My debut as an adult later that evening
Included the ignominy of five scraps of tissue
Plastered by the blood they staunched
Onto the curiosity of tablemates who looked
Beyond me in order to see right into my vapidity.
Perhaps I had grown up, then. Even a single hair
Casts a shadow. Sitting there in public,
A failure at the simple tasks, my vanity on display,
I might have already realized we use the first part
Of our lives to render the rest of it miserable.
III. Light Cavalry
The charge of the light cascade
From the disco globe’s orbiting
Spray of incandescent pricks
Had electrified me long enough.
I’d invested a decade in the hunt-
And-peck system of trying
Not to find myself—though that
Was a maze of abrupt right angles
And false leads even my shrink
Failed to decipher—but someone else,
Someone just to stay home with.
Night after night at the Nibelheim,
Through a scrim of exhaled Kools,
I’d made out the same old tricks
Lined up at the bar, as if having taken
Their positions at curtain time—
The repairman nursing his Bud,
The receptionist hugging his stool,
The goggle-eyed poli-sci postgrad,
The dishy interns in scrubs,
Bankers, biologists, bricklayers
(Even, oops, Stephen Spender once),
Each with his bit part to play,
His wary banter or boogie.
I rarely scored for lack
Of trying, wearied by the whole
Lump-in-the-throat approach
And pain-in-the-ass retreat.
So, resolute, hunched over a map
Of my future, I made a decision.
I would lie low for a month,
Hoping the tide would wash up
Flopping new prospects worth more
Than the loneliness of forced companionship.
Time was up. The time was ripe.
I chose a Saturday night to storm
The bar and steal away with a man
For good—the someone, an anybody,
A man I could admit wanting
To “love,” if that’s the word for giving
Your “heart” away, for doubting
What until that day you’d most believed.
My strategy was to sit next
To the first customer I saw wearing a tie,
A necktie, all knot and design,
Standing in, it seemed, for a set
Of assumptions and hesitations
I shared, or wanted to share.
I entered and scouted and spotted
The only one who matched my profile,
Then simply, rudely, slid into the booth
Where he was sitting with three or four
Now startled and resentful friends,
Introduced myself and started talking
Without noticing more than his four-in-hand.
(The next morning, the rest came clear:
Short, curly-haired, sharp-featured,
With fingers propped on his chin
Both delicate and slowly drumming.)
He was, it turned out, a pianist
And willing to accompany my off-key
Renditions of the usual storm and stress.
As we left the bar together that night,
And lived happily ever after for a year,
I knew the second step in the right direction
Would be the hardest, but didn’t care.
I had the life I wanted, didn’t I? Didn’t I?
TREES, WALKING
And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out
of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and
put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught.
And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.
After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him
look up
: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
—MARK 8:23–25
If the sun were a hot bright blue, the daylight
Would shine on a planet cold-blooded
To the spectrum of what now we can make out
Of shapes in the distance—the sun itself, say,
Or the blighted ash over there near the, the …
Whatever it might be. To be told
About the colors and textures we could not
Actually see, or to listen
For how the petal tip begins to turn brown
And the paint on the kitchen cabinets
Is sallower than it was when the baby
Was in diapers, would be to loosen
The string of molecular ties that binds us
To one another. As if in parallel
Lines down the center of a ballroom waiting
For the gavotte to begin, we gaze
Across at our partners and take our bearings
By what will momentarily spin
Out of our vision, the settee and lampstand,
The string quartet poised for the downbeat,
The women in black standing with lemonade
Along the wall. We need a second
To know and be known by what we see around
Us, and what we see through the window,
The men smoking cigars on the balcony,
And billowing up far behind them
The stand of horse chestnuts on the horizon.
We know where we are, what we are meant
To do next by what we can keep an eye on,
The world’s child now its worried parent.
I can still spot my father, two decades dead,
In my doctor’s thick medical file
And in his warning when he looks up from it,
My inheritance a condition
I could live without. The past blurs my future.
The blood sugar choking my system
So that I can see my right foot but not feel
The internist’s pinprick on its toes
Has also clouded my sight and anything
Three feet away takes on the thickset
Haziness that some second-generation
Impressionist would spoil a nude with.
TV’s talking heads on mute all look the same,
Bobbing owlets on the barn’s rafter.
Taking in the news hour with a martini,
I watch each day’s car bomb explosion
Through the bleared perspective history provides,
The sense that people will keep fighting
Over the same wooden idol or acre
Of nowhere because once as children
They had been grabbed and told to look their fathers
Right in the eye. Now the machine guns
Are bigger than the boys who aim them at each
Other, whole brigades of them, marching
Toward the sun that, while we weren’t looking, turned red.
•
Three cypresses advancing toward me have paused
By the bulging edge of the river
With its stench of corpses. I can smell it too
On my fingers. When the trees lean down
To lap the water, they leave the western sky
Starless, a deformed hole in the night
Where the hunter ought to prowl or the altar
Stand for its vigil. I can hear dogs,
Both menacing and scared, barking at the trees.
Behind me, the palms are throwing bones
In a game of chance. I have been told they are
Palms, and I have known palms by their pine-
Cone trunks and stiff-leafed fronds. They are all speaking
Of how their dreams, when they follow them,
Have saved their lives, and of how any people
Who invent just one god are lazy.
They wave their fans but the heat leaves them listless,
Unable to move. They have fallen
Silent. Then, closer to me now, the words start.
•
When wise men say that others know too little
Of themselves, think of King Cambyses.
He would slap the serving boy and pound his fist
On the table, shouting for the wine
From that province in the south, the one for guests,
The one he’d asked for in the first place.
A candle fell and set fire to a woven
Basket near the queen’s ladies, who rose
In fear and retired, their hands across their mouths.
Enraged, the king demanded they stop
And return to their seats, how dare they presume
To leave before he has said they may.
He called for the dancers but would not watch them.
He called next for his secretary
But had nothing to say for his wax tablet.
The look in his eyes was faraway.
His counselor Praexaspes had seen that look
Too often before, not of desire
But of vacancy, and if a king was not
Himself the kingdom was in danger.
His eyes searching the room for disloyalty,
Praexaspes approached—as if to bring
His master word of a small scandal—
The king’s couch from behind and leaned down
To whisper if he might offer some advice
To His Majesty. The king grunted.
He who drinks with moderation is prepared
To command and protect his people,
He said, for the king’s ear alone, then quickly
Coughed into his fist and backed away.
Cambyses turned and looked him full in the face,
Then smiled. We shall see, he roared, and called
For more wine, and as he gulped it down, he stared
At Praexaspes, daring him to look
At anything but the lavish gilded shells,
One after another, his slaves brought,
Each brimming with the syrupy wine that spilled
Onto his robe. You think I have lost
Control of myself, he had wanted to say,
But the words came out confusedly.
The king laughed at himself, then ordered the son
Of Praexaspes to stand facing him,
In the middle of the room, his left arm raised
High above his head so he would look
Like a once delicate acacia lightning
Had struck a limb from and left to grow
Crookedly. The young man at first tried to smile
At the king and the ladies, but then
Hesitated and glanced toward his old father,
Who slowly nodded. The son complied.
Cambyses reached out shakily for his bow
And without ever turning his head
Told his friend he would not only shoot his son
But shoot him to the very middle
Of his heart. On that last word the arrow streaked,
The body slumped to the marble floor.
Praexaspes stood there wide-eyed, ashen, silent.
The king growled at a guard to go cut
Open the dead youth’s chest and bring him the heart.
It was brought to the king, who held it
Out for the father to see. The arrowhead
Had gone precisely halfway into
The center of the bloody thing in his hand.
•
And what I first heard sounded like an arrow
Flashing past me. Farther, it had hissed.
But when it happened again, I heard Father.
I backed right up to a tree and felt
A feathery branch on my head, in my hair,
Back and forth, circling over my head.
Again, behind, soft as a breeze now, Father.
But at the same time the cypresses
By the river grew huge and da
rk and started
To come closer. A thunderous wind
Made them shudder, parts of them even broke off
And fell near me, jagged, smeared with mud.
I forgot about the other trees running
Across the hill and the tree behind
Suddenly seemed to take hold of me and shook
Me so that I was thrown to the ground
And lay trembling in a bank of leaves and soot.
It was time I was falling out of.
The trees came from nothing and then disappeared.
•
At the second intermission of Manon
We were bored and on a third vodka
When Teddy set his glass on the bar and said
That he needed to confide in me.
“If I turn a blind eye on the betrayal
I am admitting two faults of mine.
I am a fool to trust the love of my life,
And I am willing to let his cruelty
Continue if that means I can overlook
My own fears of inadequacy—
I’m too old by a decade, too dull in bed,
Too complacent about faded charms.
If I tell him that, instead of men, I see,
Say, trees walking out of his bedroom
When I return unexpectedly at dawn
From a business trip, who would I be
Kidding, hmm? The lover I can’t live without?
Or, jeez, the man I have to live with?”
The lobby chimes meant we had ten minutes left.
“That last time, the whole apartment … well …
The peonies on the coffee table stank,
The fridge was full of yogurt gone off,
The light over the bathroom sink had blown out.
All this in a weekend? A lifetime?
What the hell had I gotten wrong the whole time?
If he’s never loved me, why can’t he
Have the decency not to spit in my face? …
Oh, but why am I telling you this?
The truth is, nothing in one’s life is deserved.
Maybe deceit is some form of grace.
Or maybe love is just the ability
To overlook what is bound to hurt.”
So. Embarrassed by his pain, I let the talk
Drift back to the night’s performances …
To the French … to anything but his story,
As we took our seats for the third act.
The director’s conceit had set the Gambling Scene
In a forest whose trees had baize trunks
And rustling gold coins for leaves, though long before
The charges of cheating flew, my head
Was on my chest. Lukewarm applause around me
At the curtain scuttled half the dream,
Plundered Hearts Page 15