The Woman I Kept to Myself, Page 4

  How heartening and unsettling to see

  history wearing the face of family.

  Not only heroes, poets, Indian queens,

  but tyrants, swindlers, conquistadors

  could be close kin, along with their victims.

  The master whipping the black servant girl

  could be my cousin cursing his chauffeur

  or Tía losing patience with her maid—

  the same arched brows, the fury in the eyes.

  These ghostly resemblances remind me

  that our Dominican familia’s not exempt

  from all the highs and lows of history.

  In museums, I always felt left out

  of history with its pale northern face.

  The pink-skinned Washington at Valley Forge

  or white-wigged Jefferson were not my kin.

  Even their blue-eyed wives, their blond children,

  their little dogs seemed alien to me.

  But now my people hang upon these walls

  and history is pressing in on me,

  as if to say, ¡Tu tiempo ya llegó!

  Become the one you have been waiting for.

  ARS POLITICA

  I was the daughter who changed overnight

  from clingy, thumb in her mouth, a problem child,

  always afraid and needing to be soothed

  to feisty, elbows-out, watch-out-for-her!

  What happened—so the family story goes—

  was that I picked up reading and began

  to make things up, to take the hurricane

  out of the wind, bring back the disappeared,

  replace the shanty shacks with palaces,

  and turn the beggars loose on my vegetables.

  I yearned to write the story of my life

  into a book a girl might want to read,

  a girl like me, no longer frightened by

  the whisperings of terrified adults,

  the cries of uncles being rounded up,

  the sirens of the death squads racing by

  toward a destination I could change

  with an eraser or a trick ending.

  There had to be a way to make the world

  safer, so I could bear to live in it!

  This might not be the destiny of art,

  to save the uncles, free the prisoners

  with a twist of plot, but it’s a start

  if Wordsworth had it right, and the child is

  father of the man—but just a start.

  The inhumanity of our humanity

  will not be fixed by metaphor alone.

  The plot will fail, the tortured will divulge

  our names, our human story end, unless

  our art can right what happens in the world.

  NAMING THE ANIMALS

  Let’s name the animals no longer with us,

  except in language: start with the dodo,

  the Haitian long-tongued bat, the dwarf emu,

  the laughing owl, the eastern buffalo.

  And then animals like the nukupuu,

  the lorikeet, the broad-faced potoroo,

  whose absences don’t sadden me as much

  as I can’t put a picture to their names:

  two potoroos, say, lounging in their den

  with baby potoroos clambering over them.

  I think of Adam watching the parade

  of just-created animals, their form

  still taking shape, so had he touched too hard,

  the camel might have had some extra humps,

  the colors might have smudged on the peacock,

  which wasn’t yet a peacock, but a thing,

  a brightly colored, gorgeous, feathered thing

  in need of a name—as was the camel,

  the marmoset, the deer, the parakeet,

  waiting to enter language and be claimed.

  But now, we, Adam’s babies, find ourselves

  uttering names no one comes up to claim:

  no iridescent, billed, web-footed thing

  quacks back when we say Leguat’s Gelinote—

  in fact, unless we say the name out loud

  or write it down, the gelinote is gone.

  And so, our language, which singles us out

  from dwarf emus, nukupuus, potoroos,

  becomes an elegy, as with each loss

  our humanness begins to vanish, too.

  THE ANIMALS REVIEW PICTURES OF A VANISHED RACE

  “Look at this most curious specimen!”

  the cricket chirps, holding a photograph

  of a line of chorus girls in bathing suits

  kicking their legs. “I think it’s more than one,”

  the centipede points out. “But yes, they’re odd.”

  “Wait till you see the markings on this one!”

  the bulldog growls, tossing a black-and-white

  of a chain gang digging in their prison stripes.

  “No kin to us!” the outraged zebra shouts.

  “Observe the evil flatness of their snouts.”

  Foxes, flies, penguins, ladybugs, lions—

  in short, the whole animal kingdom has come

  to celebrate the lucky extinction

  of Earth’s worst enemy and take a vote

  on whether to elect a new top dog.

  “Cease from using species-specific terms!”

  the snakes protest. Of course, they’re sensitive,

  maligned for generations as the cause

  of mankind’s fall. Meanwhile, as next of kin,

  the chimps keep bringing up the missing link.

  After a No! vote, the animals pile up

  the memorabilia of the vanished race—

  pictures of kings, ice-skaters, terrorists—

  then light the pyre. Not a trace remains

  of those who poisoned, ravaged, exploited,

  and robbed their common home—or almost none.

  A love-struck chimp has sneaked a picture out,

  torn from the frontispiece of a book of poems,

  and hidden inside a banana peel,

  of (possibly?) Emily Dickinson.

  WHY DON’T WE EVER SEE JESUS LAUGHING?

  Why don’t we ever see Jesus laughing

  or cracking a joke or telling a tall tale

  that makes his glum disciples hold their sides?

  Seldom are they shown smiling. If at all,

  it’s Judas with the twisted mouth, that’s how

  in famous paintings you can pick him out.

  But Jesus—do we ever see him break

  into delighted chuckles the first time

  he works a miracle and wine pours out

  from water pots, saving the wedding day?

  Nobody ever laughs in the Bible

  except for the pregnant Sarah’s belly laugh

  or Yahweh’s Ha! of the know-it-all in Job.

  Probably God smiled on the seventh day,

  looking down at creation, calling it good.

  Let’s hope. But it’s His son I want to see

  in stitches, infused with the holy spirit

  of the ridiculous, a god made flesh

  and full of nonsense, guffawing at the thought

  that he is briefly dust and knows he’s dust,

  but also immortal! Maybe he smiled

  at virgins toweling his feet with their hair

  or fumbling Pharisees, but I want much more!

  If I were doubting Thomas I would ask

  to hear him laugh. Who cares about his wounds!

  Loaves and fishes multiplying like rabbits!

  Lepers with creamy skin! The lame leaping!

  The blind seeing! Lazarus rising up

  as if death were a nap! Good news galore!

  I might believe him if he smiled more.

  ADDISON’S VISION

  Addison tells of spending his summer

  clearing the farm his family has owned

  since the revolutionary war,


  acres and acres of overgrown fields—

  pastures and hayfields, hedgerows, timberlands—

  a big enterprise for an ex–farm boy

  turned pastor in a flowing cassock

  not handy for plowing. I’ve seen him lift

  the bread and wine in pale hands above

  the bowing heads of his parishioners.

  Now as he celebrates the Eucharist,

  I see the chalice turn into an ax,

  the handle darkened with his father’s sweat,

  and before that, his grandfather’s, on down

  the generations until the sad phrase

  delivered in the garden comes to mind:

  sweat of your brow, which now is Addison’s,

  clearing the land so that we see the light

  as it first shone on Adam, pruning turned

  into a kind of hands-on ministry.

  What did he see once the hedgerows were cleared?

  The skies opening, divine light beaming down

  on distant vistas of a promised land?

  Salvation for God’s sweating minister?

  No, he saw only what was there to see—

  rolling green hills such as a child might draw,

  cars moving on a distant road like beads

  on an abacus, a neighbor hanging wash:

  the earth released and grown so luminous

  that he was saved simply by seeing it.

  WINTER STORM

  It’s snowing hard in the Green Mountains,

  I haven’t seen Mount Abe all morning,

  just the white blur of an expanding storm

  in the distance, while closer by, the town

  is a pincushion of flickering lights

  prickling through the haze. Hard to believe

  the blowing snow is not the fallout from

  this deepening depression that descends

  and deadens everything. It’s snowing hard

  in the pasture below, the sheep are lost

  in the commotion of the fleecy air,

  so that it takes a leap of more than faith

  to trust that they’re still pasturing there.

  My husband left in a whirlwind of snow,

  as if his car were being whisked away

  into some other world, leaving me here

  to shovel out the silence on my own.

  It’s snowing hard in slanted lines across

  the drifting driveway, muted fields,

  in no time I’ll be snowbound, no way out

  to the small town where friends might take me in

  and reassure me I’ve had a bad dream

  I’m free to wake up from. It’s snowing hard

  for days now in the thicket of my heart

  in which no ram appears to stop my hand

  from plunging doubt’s knives into what I love

  as the snows come down and all my Isaacs die,

  every last one of them from lack of faith,

  and it keeps snowing until nothing’s left

  except the emptiness of the blank page.

  THE THERAPIST

  He seems tired. (I’m his last appointment.)

  Being wise all day probably takes its toll,

  having to know but not appear to know

  so patients search out answers on their own.

  “Right?” I ask him. He shrugs, “If you say so.”

  “On the other hand,” he’s fond of saying;

  “You tell me what it means,” he grins slyly—

  transparent strategies, hoops I’ll leap through

  into happiness, if that’s what it takes.

  “Ah, happiness,” he sighs, again the grin.

  Weekly, we meet. The clinic waiting room

  is strewn with cheap toys and old magazines

  I never heard of: Working Mother, Self,

  and one for kids with guessing games and jokes

  none of them reads. One little girl tells me

  her older brother’s sick, “and mean,” she adds.

  Her frazzled mother scolds her, “Shut your mouth!”

  lifting a threatening hand. “Sick!” she repeats

  and bursts into giggles, and so do I.

  I sober instantly when he appears.

  We walk the endless hall. Along the way

  the whirring noise machines outside each door

  obscure confessions going on inside:

  mothers who scold and swat, fathers who drink,

  uncles who fondle, lovers who betray—

  the whole sad gamut of inhumanity

  we practice on each other, which is why

  we’ve come here, sick and mean, to heal ourselves.

  “Right?” I ask him. He’s not supposed to say

  what he knows, if he knows, what we’re doing.

  DISAPPEARING

  I have slenderized. I have gotten thin,

  thin as a wafer, as a piece of string,

  a filling, a poor man’s wedding ring.

  Undressed of any excess, I blend in,

  a blind stitch hidden in the tapestry

  of the generations, a reluctant egg

  shunning the lavish spray of eager sperm.

  Why be a nine-months bother in the womb,

  pumped with a bellyful of pretty hopes,

  only to be born needy, colicky?

  If I make myself small perhaps I’ll fit

  in the stingiest fist, the heart that never has

  enough to give, the bully who wants it all,

  the glutton who piles his plate to avoid the sight

  of needy eyes that await what crumbs might fall.

  After the feast there’s bound to be a crust

  on the master’s plate, a meal I much prefer

  to one that requires a toll of gratitude.

  Better not compromise the seed of self

  to whatever power wields the watering can.

  And so I hug my body to myself,

  pull in my nets, fold and refold my flesh.

  What will be left for death if I succeed?

  Only a trail of print on a page as clean

  as the dinner plate of a goody-goody child.

  After the feast of summer comes the fall

  with its empty cup. Why mourn the shriveled leaves?

  Less and less to belabor or become.

  A nibble, a sip, a swallow—and I’m done.

  I am disappearing. I am almost gone.

  GAINING MY SELF BACK

  Muscle on muscle, fat layered on fat:

  arms, belly, buttocks, hips, thighs, legs bulge out—

  I’m packing the body for return to life!

  This is no resurrection from the dead,

  but an escape from the anorexic hold

  of losses that can’t be helped, but pile up

  like roadblocks at the borders of the self.

  Each bite scanned, each calorie turned back

  as if vigilance over each spoonful could ward off

  the bitter taste of an old unhappiness.

  I’m getting free! I’m going home! I dream

  of piling my plate with seconds, drinking deep

  from the cup of whatever’s put in front of me;

  filling my life to the brim and above the brim

  with all that I ever wanted but never got:

  a downpour, not a drizzle; a bonfire,

  not a flickering flame. Bring on the feast,

  the miracle of multiplying loaves

  to feed a multitude of orphan needs

  starved by the iron will of discipline.

  Wherever I walk, footprints mark the ground.

  Branches I brush by rustle. Birdsong stops

  at my approach. I’m a human presence now.

  Gone are my waif days, waiting in the wings,

  my butterfly touch, my pretty satin things,

  the beauty of the body vanishing . . .

  No more withholding. I am almost hom
e.

  Deep in my self, a light has been left on—

  as if somebody, knowing I’d return,

  has set the table, kept my supper warm.

  THAT MOMENT

  when astronauts disappear behind the moon

  and all contact with them is lost

  until they reappear again; or when

  firemen enter the burning building

  and flames leap out of the hole they entered;

  or during wartime as the train pulls out

  of the station, a desperate hand waves

  from the window, a voice calls out a name,

  a voice the named one never hears again,

  or when your child merges with a crowd—

  those everlasting separations from

  the people you love, the places you love,

  to which you were intending to return.

  But the moment passes; the train arrives;

  you enter a new country, fall in love,

  marry, and build a house with postcard views

  of snow-capped mountains, babbling brooks—

  clichés you never knew would feel so good.

  But as you look out savoring the scene,

  a chain of other mountains rises up,

  a ghostly face composes in the clouds,

  a loss you never thought you would survive,

  but here you are far stronger, more at home

  and happier than you ever were before.

  Those hard moments that take your breath away,

  and literally will do so at the end,

  pile up like casualties and treasures, both.

  Hold on tight! could be the first commandment

  for this life, and the second, Let it go!

  Only the empty hand is free to hold.

  SIGNS

  My friend said what was hardest were the signs

  her mother left behind: a favorite dress

  misbuttoned on a hanger; library books

  covered in paper bags, way overdue;

  a flowered cup she’d broken and glued back

  crookedly, so the petals didn’t match.

  Her mother came to visit every year

  and mined the house with madeleines that broke

  my friend’s heart every time she pulled open

  a cabinet her mother had straightened.