But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
Absence
This morning as low clouds
skidded over the spires of the city
I found next to a bench
in a park an ivory chess piece—
the white knight as it turned out—
and in the pigeon-ruffling wind
I wondered where all the others were,
lined up somewhere
on their red and black squares,
many of them feeling uneasy
about the saltshaker
that was taking his place,
and all of them secretly longing
for the moment
when the white horse
would reappear out of nowhere
and advance toward the board
with his distinctive motion,
stepping forward, then sideways
before advancing again—
the same move I was making him do
over and over in the sunny field of my palm.
Royal Aristocrat
My old typewriter used to make so much noise
I had to put a cushion of newspaper
beneath it late at night
so as not to wake the whole house.
Even if I closed the study door
and typed a few words at a time—
the best way to work anyway—
the clatter of keys was still so loud
that the gray and yellow bird
would wince in its cage.
Some nights I could even see the moon
frowning down through the winter trees.
That was twenty years ago,
yet as I write this with my soft lead pencil
I can still hear that distinctive sound,
like small arms fire across a border,
one burst after another
as my wife turned in her sleep.
I was a single monkey
trying to type the opening lines of my Hamlet,
often doing nothing more
than ironing pieces of paper in the platen
then wrinkling them into balls
to flick into the wicker basket.
Still, at least I was making noise,
adding to the great secretarial din,
that chorus of clacking and bells,
thousands of desks receding into the past.
And that was more than can be said
for the mute rooms of furniture,
the speechless salt and pepper shakers,
and the tall silent hedges surrounding the house.
Such deep silence on those nights—
just the sound of my typing
and a few stars singing a song their mother
sang when they were mere babies in the sky.
Paris
In the apartment someone gave me,
the bathroom looked out on a little garden
at the bottom of an air shaft
with a few barely sprouting trees,
ivy clinging to the white cinder blocks,
a blue metal table and a rusted chair
where, it would seem, no one had ever sat.
Every morning, a noisy bird
would flutter down between the buildings,
perch on a thin branch and yell at me
in French bird-talk
while I soaked in the tub
under the light from the pale translucent ceiling.
And while he carried on, I would lie there
in the warm soapy water
wondering what shirt I would put on that day,
what zinc-covered bar I would stand at
with my Herald Tribune and a cup of strong coffee.
After a lot of squawking, he would fly
back into the sky leaving only the sound
of a metal storefront being raised
or a scooter zipping by outside,
which was my signal
to stand up in the cloudy water
and reach for a towel,
time to start concentrating on which way
I would turn after I had locked the front door,
what shop signs I would see,
what bridges I would lean on
to watch the broad river undulating
like a long-playing record under the needle of my eye.
Time to stand dripping wet and wonder
about the hordes of people
I would pass in the street, mostly people
whose existence I did not believe in,
but a few whom I would glance at
and see my whole life
the way you see the ocean from the shore.
One morning after another,
I would fan myself dry with a towel
and wonder about what paintings
I would stand before that day,
looking forward to the usual—
the sumptuous reclining nudes,
the knife next to a wedge of cheese,
a landscape with pale blue mountains,
the heads and shoulders of gods
struggling with one another,
a foot crushing a snake—
but always hopeful for something new
like yesterday’s white turkeys in a field
or the single stalk of asparagus on a plate
in a small gilded frame,
always ready, now that I am dressed,
to cheer the boats of the beautiful,
the boats of the strange,
as they float down the river of this momentous day.
Istanbul
It was a pleasure to enter by a side street
in the center of the city
a bathhouse said to be 300 years old,
old enough to have opened the pores of Florence Nightingale
and soaped the musical head of Franz Liszt.
And it was a pleasure to drink
cold wine by a low wood fire
before being directed to a small room in an upper gallery,
a room with a carpet and a narrow bed
where I folded my clothes into a pile
then came back down, naked
except for a gauzy striped cloth tucked around my waist.
It was an odd and eye-opening sensation
to be led by a man with close-cropped hair
and spaces between his teeth
into a steamy marble rotunda
and to lie there alone on the smooth marble
watching the droplets fall through the beams
of natural light in the high dome
and later to hear the song I sang—
“She Thinks I Still Care”—echo up into the ceiling.
I felt like the last of the sultans
when the man returned and began to scrub me—
to lather and douse me, scour and shampoo me,
and splash my drenched body
with fresh warm water scooped from a marble basin.
But it was not until he sudsed me
behind my ears and between my toes
that I felt myself filling with gratitude
the way a cloud fills with rain,
the way a glass pipe slowly fills with smoke.
In silence I thanked the man
who scrubbed the bottoms of my feet.
I thanked the history of the Turkish bath
and the long chain of bathmen standing unshaven,
arms folded, waiting for the next customer
to come through the swinging doors of frosted glass.
I thanked everyone whose job
it ever was to lay hands on the skin of strangers,
and I gave general thanks that I was lying
facedown in a warm puddle of soap
and not a warm puddle of blood
in some corner of this incomprehensible city.
As one bucket after another
of warm water was poured over my lowered head,
I stopped thinking of who and what to thank
and rode out on a boat of joy,
a blue boat of marble and soap,
rode out to the entrance of the harbor
where I raised a finger of good-bye
then felt the boat begin to rise and fall
as it met the roll of the incoming waves,
bearing my body, my clean, blessed body out to sea.
Love
The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone
and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in
and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.
She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.
And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,
whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.
And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together
is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,
I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted
when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.
Languor
I have come back to the couch—
hands behind my head,
legs crossed at the ankles—
to resume my lifelong study
of the ceiling and its river-like crack,
its memory of a water stain,
the touch of civilization
in the rounded steps of the molding,
and the lick of time in the flaking plaster.
To move would only ruffle
the calm surface of the morning,
and disturb shadows of leaves in the windows.
And to throw open a door
would startle the fish in the pond,
maybe frighten a few birds from a hedge.
Better to stay here,
to occupy the still room of thought,
to listen to the dog breathing on the floor,
better to count my lucky coins,
or redesign my family coat of arms—
remove the plow and hive, shoo away the bee.
Obituaries
These are no pages for the young,
who are better off in one another’s arms,
nor for those who just need to know
about the price of gold,
or a hurricane that is ripping up the Keys.
But eventually you may join
the crowd who turn here first to see
who has fallen in the night,
who has left a shape of air walking in their place.
Here is where the final cards are shown,
the age, the cause, the plaque of deeds,
and sometimes an odd scrap of news—
that she collected sugar bowls,
that he played solitaire without any clothes.
And all the survivors huddle at the end
under the roof of a paragraph
as if they had sidestepped the flame of death.
What better way to place a thin black frame
around the things of the morning—
the hand-painted cup,
the hemispheres of a cut orange,
the slant of sunlight on the table?
And sometimes a most peculiar pair turns up,
strange roommates lying there
side by side upon the page—
Arthur Godfrey next to Man Ray,
Ken Kesey by the side of Dale Evans.
not the couples of the animal kingdom,
but rather pairs of men and women
ascending the gangplank two by two,
surgeon and model,
balloonist and metalworker,
an archaeologist and an authority on pain.
Arm in arm, they get on board
then join the others leaning on the rails,
all saved at last from the awful flood of life—
so many of them every day
there would have to be many arks,
an armada to ferry the dead
over the heavy waters that roll beyond the world,
and many Noahs too,
bearded and fiercely browed, vigilant up there at every prow.
Today
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
Ave Atque Vale
Even though I managed to swerve around the lump
of groundhog lying on its back on the road,
he traveled with me for miles,
a quiet passenger
who passed the time looking out the window
enjoying this new view of the woods
he once hobbled around in,
sleeping all day and foraging at night,
rising sometimes to consult the wind with his snout.
Last night he must have wandered
onto the road, hoping to slip
behind the curtain of soft ferns on the other side.
I see these forms every day
and always hope the next one up ahead
is a shredded tire, a discarded brown coat,
but there they are, assuming
every imaginable pose for death’s portrait.
This one I speak of, for example,
the one who rode with me for miles,
reminded me of a small Roman citizen,
with his prosperous belly,
his faint smile,
and his one stiff forearm raised
as if he were still alive, still hailing Caesar.
Roadside Flowers
These are the kind you are supposed
to stop to look at, as I do this morning,
but just long enough
so as not to carry my non-stopping
around with me all day,
a big medicine ball of neglect and disregard.
But now I seem to be carrying
my not-stopping-
long-enough ball
as I walk around
the circumference of myself
and up and down the angles of the day.
Roadside flowers,
when I get back to my room
I will make it all up to you.
I will lie on my stomach and write
in a notebook how lighthearted you were,
pink and white among the weeds,
wild phlox perhaps,
or at least a cousin of that family,
a pretty one who comes to visit
every summer for two weeks without her parents,
she who unpacks her things upstairs
while I am out on the lawn
throwing the ball as high as I can,
catching it almost
every time in my two outstretched hands.