First the bad boots
give up their strength, then the toes lift
their anchors. The ankle
bones are broken,
and so on, until the bladder lets go, without
shame, and the genital
organ washes away, the ovum
and her fertile signals. A proxy pain
stands in for the larger
intangible.
Last night
tossed in
my bed
the sound of the rain turned me
around,
a leaf
in a dried gully
from side to
side,
the sound of the rain took me
apart, opened to what is it?
breath caught in memory of
a deep sweetness
This season for us, the Jews —
a season of candles,
one more
on the seven-branched candlestick for
the seven days of the week,
but let it be seven
in the sense of luck in dice,
seven of the stars in
the constellations:
Orion, Aldebaran in the sky
Take a statement, the same as yesterday’ s dictation:
Lately pain has been there waiting when I awake.
Creative despair and failure have made their patient.
Anyway, I’ m afraid I have nothing to say.
Those crazy phrases I desecrated the paper
With against the grain... Taste has turned away her face
Temporarily, like a hasty, ill-paid waitress
Self-hatred? No, no dear: that seems inflated —
chagrin: the shame you feel when friends withdraw
for reasons they leave tactfully unstated,
leaving you to guess at your faux pas
From all you did and didn’ t say for ages,
as in some vast congressional report,
your sin, at last, is lost among the pages;
a snow of detail cuts inquiry short.
In downtown windows where late sunlight glares,
you see yourself, as if you’ d never met.
Who is this rumpled lookalike who wears
a blouse like yours, the armpits dark with sweat?
What kind of delusion are you under?
The life he hid just knocked you flat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
What God hath joined let no man put asunder.
Did God know you’ d marry a rat?
What kind of delusion are you under?
His online persona simply stunned her
as it did you when you started to chat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
To the victors go the plunder:
you should crown them with a baseball bat.
What kind of delusion are you under?
Past the fountain out of repair
And the boarded diner
A small studio
You’ d never told anyone about
Where old clothes have remained
Right where you’ ve dumped them
Side by side
With random notes and sketches
When someone close to you
Has a different idea of what you represent
He insisted
You’ ll write a check for the loan
There were other misjudgments
As well. Exits were being blocked
Down every hall I walked
Until a sort of muscle memory —
Well, I knew it all along, of course,
we all got tickets to The Truth
finally we thought finally
when the curtain fell away
our indrawn breaths could be heard
even in the next theater
even the gasp of the mime
who had slipped in among us
a loud whushing like reams of litter
whirling upward in a gale
hands shot to mouths and mouths
fell open I couldn’ t say within
how many seconds
all our minds shut some
slamming others just a click
like 300 parallel
rows of tipped dominoes
a racket of almost unison
A momentary rupture to the vision:
the wavering limbs of a birch fashion
the fluttering hem of the deity’ s garment,
the cooling cup of coffee the ocean the deity
waltzes across. This is enough — but sometimes
the deity’ s heady ta-da coaxes the cherries
in our mental slot machine to line up, and
our brains summon flickering silver like
salmon spawning a river; the jury decides
in our favor, and we’ re free to see, for now.
Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking
