Into bloody chunks on the highway,
May have already foretold our story.
Stray hen, is what they call our neighbor,
The one always looking lost,
Always clucking about something
And crossing herself as if she were in church.
I fear she hears those hounds barking,
And so does that man I see every night
In the picture window of his home
Sitting with a lit candle at a long table.
THE WHITE CAT
Mother was beginning to worry about me.
Moping around, still unmarried,
Destined to sit in the same gray sweater
And the same chair for the rest of my life,
Playing with the same three buttons.
I bought her a radio to cheer her up.
Even dance music sounded sad to her.
The quiet was better, especially on Sundays.
Together we’d watch the rain fall,
The night come, weary of being night,
And having to turn up at the appointed hour
Wearing the same black garments.
The buildings across the street were dark
While the sky had suddenly cleared.
I thought I heard Mother call my name,
So I covered my ears with my hands
And watched a white cat with its tail raised,
Walking cautiously along the parapet,
Stop and take a peek in every window.
THE ONE WHO DISAPPEARED
Now that it’s warm enough to sit on the porch at night
Someone happened to remember a neighbor,
Though it had been more than thirty years
Since she went for a little walk after dinner
And never came back to her husband and children.
No one present could recall much about her,
Except how she’d smile and grow thoughtful
All of a sudden and would not say what about,
When asked, as if she already had a secret,
Or was heartbroken that she didn’t have one.
THE MESSAGE
Take a message, crow, as the day breaks.
And find the one I hold dear,
Tell her the trees are almost bare
And the nights here are dark and cold.
Learn if she lights the stove already,
Goes to bed naked or fully dressed,
Sips hot tea in the morning, watching
Neighbors’ children wait for a school bus.
Tell her nothing fills me with more sorrow,
Than the memory of seeing her
Covering her face with her hands
When she thought she was alone.
Help me, bird, flapping from tree to tree
And calling in a voice full of distress,
To some fond companion of yours
You’d like to see flying by your side.
BIRDS KNOW
There’s a pond, a man said,
Far back in these woods,
Birds and deer know about
And slake their thirst there
In a water so cold and clear,
It’s like a brand-new mirror
No one had a chance to look at,
Save, perhaps, that little boy,
Who went missing years ago,
And may’ve drowned in it,
Or left some trace of himself
Playing along its rocky edges.
I better go and find out,
This very night, I said to myself,
With my mind running wild,
And the moon out there so bright.
III
THE MOVIE
My childhood, an old silent movie.
O, winter evenings
When Mother led me by the hand
Into a darkened theater
Where a film had already started—
Like someone else’s dream
Into which we happened to drop in—
With a young woman writing a letter
And pausing to wipe her eyes
In a room looking out on some harbor
And a bird sitting quietly in her cage,
No one was paying any attention to,
Nor to the white ship on the horizon,
Perhaps drawing closer, perhaps sailing away.
It was an occupied city, I forgot to say.
We trudged our way home
Bundled up heavily against the cold,
Keeping our eyes to the ground
Along the treacherous, dimly lit streets.
BELLADONNA
A word that comes to mind tonight
Strolling past red paper lanterns,
Bead curtains, and Oriental carpets
In a softly lit window of a fortune-teller.
A pretty girl in white evening gown
Seated at a small round table
Awaiting the arrival of the oracle
With tears streaking down her face.
A sight the live parrot on the premises
May want to comment on from his perch,
And the devil himself display tonight
To a young monk kneeling in prayer.
ON CLOUD NINE
Most days I’m airborne.
Nights too.
One foot before the other
On a thread so thin
A spider couldn’t tell it from its own,
I promenade unseen
Over your heads.
You who are always ready
To applaud a fireman
Saving a child from a burning building,
Look up now and then
And try to catch my act.
SWEPT AWAY
Melville had the sea and Poe his nightmares,
To thrill them and haunt them,
And you have the faces of strangers,
Glimpsed once and never again.
Like that woman whose eye you caught
On a crowded street in New York
Who spun around after she went by
As if she had just seen a ghost.
Leaving you with a memory of her hand
Rising to touch her flustered face
And muffle what might’ve been something
She was saying as she was swept away.
MY GODDESS
Your nose is red, your eyes tear,
And you have sniffles
As if you’ve been watching
Soap operas all afternoon.
Diane—or whatever you call yourself—
Unless I can get you a drink
You may catch a bad cold
And have to stay in bed for a week.
Dearest, it’s true you deserve
Far better than this rotgut
I found under the kitchen sink.
Still, go ahead and take a swig,
And stop pestering me to order
Chinese food at this hour
And find you a pair of dark glasses
You could wear in bed for me.
THE LUCKY COUPLE
This warm spring weather made them lazy
Sitting side by side on a park bench
With eyes closed and sunlight on their faces,
Listening to children in the playground
And some bird chirping in the trees
Long after they should’ve been back in the office.
One of them ought to have had the sense
To peek at their watch and with a shout
Drag the other away by the arm.
His excuse is, he’s with a beautiful woman
Incapable of lifting a finger to save them
From being both sacked upon their return.
For now, with their legs stretched out
And their arms folded, they are content.
The people hurrying by must think
How lucky these two must be without
A care in the world, unlike t
hat bunch
Looking pissed as they exit the courthouse.
DEAD SURE
Lovebirds smooching in the street,
The end of the world is coming.
Even that legless veteran
Asking schoolgirls for some change
Is going to hell in a hurry,
Because he keeps using
The name of our Lord in vain.
The old man holding the sign
With a grim look on his face
Is sure he’ll be the one saved.
THE LOVER
When I lived on a farm I wrote love letters
To chickens pecking in the yard,
Or I’d sit in the outhouse writing one to a spider
Mending his web over my head.
That’s when my wife took off with the mailman.
The neighbors were leaving, too.
Their sow and piglets squealing
As they ran after the moving truck,
And even that scarecrow I once tied to a tree
So it would have to listen to me.
THE SAINT
The woman I love is a saint
Who deserves to have
People falling on their knees
Before her in the street
Asking for her blessing.
Instead, here she is on the floor,
Hitting a mouse with a shoe
As tears run down her face.
THE ART OF HAPPINESS
Thanks to a stash of theatrical costumes
And their kindly owner,
An opportunity for this couple to brighten up
This dark and dreary day,
Cut a dash as they step out
Into the crowded street
Wearing powdered wigs,
Cross against the screeching traffic,
And go have lunch,
She looking like Marie Antoinette,
And he all in black,
Like her executioner or father confessor,
Watching the young French Queen
Splashing ketchup over her fries
With a wicked smile on her face,
While he struggles to balance the straw
That came with the Coke
On his nose and waits for her applause.
IN SOMEONE’S BACKYARD
What a pretty sight
To see two lovers drink wine and kiss,
A dog on his hind legs
Begging for table scraps.
CHERRY PIE
If it’s true that the devil has his finger
In every pie, he must be waiting
For the night to fall, the darkness to
Thicken in the yard, so we won’t see him
Lick the finger he dipped in your pie,
The one you took out of the oven, love,
And left to cool by the open window.
A DAY CAME
The birdcage was gone and the couch
With your parents on it watching TV.
Nor did we notice the moving truck,
The driver waving to us as he drove away.
I like the new look of our lives, you said,
Dangling a beer bottle by the neck
And walking pleased from room to room,
Every one of which was now empty.
Stepping out at last to look for our car,
We found neighbors’ homes trashed,
Their front lawns covered with weeds
A few of which had pretty blue flowers
That seemed pleased to be there,
As crows do finding a roadkill.
The interests of certain powerful parties
In this country were being met.
Would that include God? I wondered
While you lay next to me on the floor,
Dead to the world. Still, you’d expect
Someone that big to lift a finger.
HAUNTED HOUSE
When the evening silence that lingered
Under a tree listening to a bird,
Strolls over to the village church
And then waits on its stone steps
For the minister to come and let it in—
But no one’s about, either in the church
Or in the row of stately homes,
Each one of them long unoccupied
And kept in good order by their ghosts,
Like the one that struck a match,
When the power went out last night
And a woman as nature made her
Could be seen descending the stairs
Carrying one lit candle and climbing
Afterwards with a slice of watermelon.
THE BLIZZARD
O to be inside a mailbox
On a snow-piled street corner
Snuggled against a letter
Sending love and hot kisses
To some lucky fellow out there.
IV
THE INFINITE
The infinite yawns and keeps yawning.
Is it sleepy?
Does it miss Pythagoras?
The sails on Columbus’s three ships?
Does the sound of the surf remind it of itself?
Does it ever sit over a glass of wine
and philosophize?
Does it peek into mirrors at night?
Does it have a suitcase full of souvenirs
stashed away somewhere?
Does it like to lie in a hammock with the wind
whispering sweet nothings in its ear?
Does it enter empty churches and light a single
candle on the altar?
Does it see us as a couple of fireflies
playing hide-and-seek in a graveyard?
Does it find us good to eat?
LAST BET FOR THE NIGHT
Wagered one more thought
The one about this moment
I’m living through
Being all that’s true,
With my heart leaping
To place another red chip
On this dark night’s
Vast and unattended gaming table.
DESCRIPTION
It was like a teetering house of cards,
A contortionist strumming a ukulele,
A gorilla raging in someone’s attic,
A car graveyard frantic to get back
On the highway in a tornado,
Tolstoy’s beard in his mad old age,
General Custer’s stuffed horse . . .
What was? I ask myself and have no idea,
But it’ll come to me one of these days.
MYSTERY THEATER
Bald man smoking in bed,
Naked lightbulb over his head,
The shadow of his cigar
Next to him on the wall,
Its long ash about to fall
Into a pitch-dark fishbowl.
SHADOW ON THE WALL
Round midnight,
Let’s invite
A fellow bedlamite
For a bite.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO HIDE
I went down the street of false gods
The street of men dressed to kill
The street of a rat breaking cover
The street of moths courting and mating at night
The street of runaway brides
The street of the grand hotel on the skids
The street of painted smiles
The street of the sorcerer’s apprentice
The street of smoke and mirrors
The street of shadow puppets
The street of bloody wars and revolutions
The street of the pacing tiger
The street of a policeman on his horse
The street of a sleepwalking child
The street of the illegible address
SCRIBBLED IN THE DARK
A shout in the street.
Someone locking horns with his demon.
Then, calm returning.
The wind tousling the leaves.
The birds in their nests
Pleased to be rocked back to sleep.
Night turning cool.
Streams of blood in the gutter
Waiting for sunrise.
IN THE GREEK CHURCH
The holy icon of the Mother of God
With moonlight at its feet
Like a saucer of milk
Set out for a cat to find
As it sneaks in at dawn.
The flames on her candles
Growing unsteady
As its steps draw close,
The saints over the altar
With their eyes open wide
Like children seeing a ghost.
THE MASQUE
A bit of light from the setting sun,
Lingered on in your wineglass,
As you sat on your front steps
After the last guest had departed,
Watching the darkness come,
The first firefly set out tipsily
Over the lawn carrying a lantern
Like a player in a masque miming
Some scene of madness or despair,
The other players still in hiding,
The wind and the leaves providing
The sole musical accompaniment.
MANY A HOLY MAN
Took a turn whispering in his ear
In some quiet hour of the night,
Telling him how much happier
He’d be if he were to desire nothing,
Urging him to stop dwelling
On the many ups and downs in his life—
Some of them still fresh in his mind—
That brought him to this sorry state,
And make peace with everything
That can’t be changed,
Understood, or ever properly resolved—
Like God and one’s fate,
And devote his remaining days
To minding that inner light
So that it may let him walk without stumbling
As little by little night overtakes him.