All of Us: The Collected Poems Read online

  washed my hands. Smoked a couple more cigarettes

  while I listened to the beat of the little

  music that was left. Things had quieted way down,

  though the sea was still running. Wind gave

  the house a last shake when I rose

  and took three steps, turned, took three more steps, turned.

  Then I went to bed and slept wonderfully,

  as always. My God, what a life!

  But I thought I should explain, leave a note anyhow,

  about this mess in the living room

  and what went on here last night. Just in case

  my lights went out, and I keeled over.

  Yes, there was a party here last night.

  And the radio’s still on. Okay.

  But if I die today, I die happy—thinking

  of my sweetheart, and of that last popcorn.

  After Rainy Days

  After rainy days and the same serious doubts —

  strange to walk past the golf course,

  sun overhead, men putting, or teeing, whatever

  they do on those green links. To the river that flows

  past the clubhouse. Expensive houses on either side

  of the river, a dog barking at this kid

  who revs his motorcycle. To see a man fighting

  a large salmon in the water just below

  the footbridge. Where a couple of joggers have stopped

  to watch. Never in my life have I seen anything

  like this! Stay with him, I think, breaking

  into a run. For Christ’s sake, man, hold on!

  Interview

  Talking about myself all day

  brought back

  something I thought over and

  done with. What I’d felt

  for Maryann—Anna, she calls

  herself now—all those years.

  I went to draw a glass of water.

  Stood at the window for a time.

  When I came back

  we passed easily to the next thing.

  Went on with my life. But

  that memory entering like a spike.

  Blood

  We were five at the craps table

  not counting the croupier

  and his assistant. The man

  next to me had the dice

  cupped in his hand.

  He blew on his fingers, said

  Come on, baby! And leaned

  over the table to throw.

  At that moment, bright blood rushed

  from his nose, spattering

  the green felt cloth. He dropped

  the dice. Stepped back amazed.

  And then terrified as blood

  ran down his shirt. God,

  what’s happening to me?

  he cried. Took hold of my arm.

  I heard Death’s engines turning.

  But I was young at the time,

  and drunk, and wanted to play.

  I didn’t have to listen.

  So I walked away. Didn’t turn back, ever,

  or find this in my head, until today.

  Tomorrow

  Cigarette smoke hanging on

  in the living room. The ship’s lights

  out on the water, dimming. The stars

  burning holes in the sky. Becoming ash, yes.

  But it’s all right, they’re supposed to do that.

  Those lights we call stars.

  Burn for a time and then die.

  Me hell-bent. Wishing

  it were tomorrow already.

  I remember my mother, God love her,

  saying, Don’t wish for tomorrow.

  You’re wishing your life away.

  Nevertheless, I wish

  for tomorrow. In all its finery.

  I want sleep to come and go, smoothly.

  Like passing out of the door of one car

  into another. And then to wake up!

  Find tomorrow in my bedroom.

  I’m more tired now than I can say.

  My bowl is empty. But it’s my bowl, you see,

  and I love it.

  Grief

  Woke up early this morning and from my bed

  looked far across the Strait to see

  a small boat moving through the choppy water,

  a single running light on. Remembered

  my friend who used to shout

  his dead wife’s name from hilltops

  around Perugia. Who set a plate

  for her at his simple table long after

  she was gone. And opened the windows

  so she could have fresh air. Such display

  I found embarrassing. So did his other

  friends. I couldn’t see it.

  Not until this morning.

  Harley’s Swans

  I’m trying again. A man has to begin

  over and over—to try to think and feel

  only in a very limited field, the house

  on the street, the man at the corner drug store.

  — SHERWOOD ANDERSON, FROM A LETTER

  Anderson, I thought of you when I loitered

  in front of the drug store this afternoon.

  Held onto my hat in the wind and looked down

  the street for my boyhood. Remembered my dad

  taking me to get haircuts —

  that rack of antlers mounted on a wall

  next to the calendar picture of a rainbow

  trout leaping clear of the water

  with a hook in its jaw. My mother.

  How she went with me to pick out

  school clothes. That part embarrassing

  because I needed to shop in men’s wear

  for man-sized pants and shirts.

  Nobody, then, who could love me,

  the fattest kid on the block, except my parents.

  So I quit looking and went inside.

  Had a Coke at the soda fountain

  where I gave some thought to betrayal.

  How that part always came easy.

  It was what came after that was hard.

  I didn’t think about you anymore, Anderson.

  You’d come and gone in an instant.

  But I remembered, there at the fountain,

  Harley’s swans. How they got there

  I don’t know. But one morning he was taking

  his school bus along a country road

  when he came across 21 of them just down

  from Canada. Out on this pond

  in a farmer’s field. He brought his school bus

  to a stop, and then he and his grade-schoolers

  just looked at them for a while and felt good.

  I finished the Coke and drove home.

  It was almost dark now. The house

  quiet and empty. The way

  I always thought I wanted it to be.

  The wind blew hard all day.

  Blew everything away, or nearly.

  But still this feeling of shame and loss.

  Even though the wind ought to lay now

  and the moon come out soon, if this is

  anything like the other nights.

  I’m here in the house. And I want to try again.

  You, of all people, Anderson, can understand.

  VI

  Elk Camp

  Everyone else sleeping when I step

  to the door of our tent. Overhead,

  stars brighter than stars ever were

  in my life. And farther away.

  The November moon driving

  a few dark clouds over the valley.

  The Olympic Range beyond.

  I believed I could smell the snow that was coming.

  Our horses feeding inside

  the little rope corral we’d thrown up.

  From the side of the hill the sound

  of spring water. Our spring water.

  Wind passing in the tops of the fir trees.

  I’d never smelled a forest before
that

  night, either. Remembered reading how

  Henry Hudson and his sailors smelled

  the forests of the New World

  from miles out at sea. And then the next thought —

  I could gladly live the rest of my life

  and never pick up another book.

  I looked at my hands in the moonlight

  and understood there wasn’t a man,

  woman, or child I could lift a finger

  for that night. I turned back and lay

  down then in my sleeping bag.

  But my eyes wouldn’t close.

  The next day I found cougar scat

  and elk droppings. But though I rode

  a horse all over that country,

  up and down hills, through clouds

  and along old logging roads,

  I never saw an elk. Which was

  fine by me. Still, I was ready.

  Lost to everyone, a rifle strapped

  to my shoulder. I think maybe

  I could have killed one.

  Would have shot at one, anyway.

  Aimed just where I’d been told —

  behind the shoulder at the heart

  and lungs. “They might run,

  but they won’t run far.

  Look at it this way,” my friend said.

  “How far would you run with a piece

  of lead in your heart?” That depends,

  my friend. That depends. But that day

  I could have pulled the trigger

  on anything. Or not.

  Nothing mattered anymore

  except getting back to camp

  before dark. Wonderful

  to live this way! Where nothing

  mattered more than anything else.

  I saw myself through and through.

  And I understood something, too,

  as my life flew back to me there in the woods.

  And then we packed out. Where the first

  thing I did was take a hot bath.

  And then reach for this book.

  Grow cold and unrelenting once more.

  Heartless. Every nerve alert.

  Ready to kill, or not.

  The Windows of the

  Summer Vacation Houses

  They withheld judgment, looking down at us

  silently, in the rain, in our little boat —

  as three lines went into the dark water

  for salmon. I’m talking of the Hood Canal

  in March, when the rain won’t let up.

  Which was fine by me. I was happy

  to be on the water, trying out

  new gear. I heard of the death,

  by drowning, of a man I didn’t know.

  And the death in the woods of another,

  hit by a snag. They don’t call them

  widow-makers for nothing.

  Hunting stories of bear,

  elk, deer, cougar—taken in and out

  of season. More hunting stories.

  Women, this time. And this time

  I could join in. It used to be girls.

  Girls of 15, 16, 17, 18—and we

  the same age. Now it was women. And married

  women at that. No longer girls. Women.

  Somebody or other’s wife. The mayor

  of this town, for instance. His wife.

  Taken. The deputy sheriff’s wife, the same.

  But he’s an asshole, anyway.

  Even a brother’s wife. It’s not anything

  to be proud of, but somebody had to go

  and do his homework for him. We caught

  two small ones, and talked a lot, and laughed.

  But as we turned in to the landing

  a light went on in one of those houses

  where nobody was supposed to be.

  Smoke drifted up from the chimney

  of this place we’d looked at as empty.

  And suddenly, like that—I remembered Maryann.

  When we were both young.

  The rare coin of those mint days!

  It was there and gone

  by the time we hooked the boat to the trailer.

  But it was something to recall.

  It turned dark as I watched the figure

  move to stand at the window and look

  down. And I knew then those things that happened

  so long ago must have happened, but not

  to us. No, I don’t think people could go on living

  if they had lived those things. It couldn’t

  have been us.

  The people I’m talking about—I’m sure

  I must have read about somewhere.

  They were not the main characters, no,

  as I’d thought at first and for a long

  while after. But some others you

  sympathized with, even loved, and cried for —

  just before they were taken away

  to be hanged, or put somewhere.

  We drove off without looking back

  at the houses. Last night

  I cleaned fish in the kitchen.

  This morning it was still dark

  when I made coffee. And found blood

  on the porcelain sides of the sink.

  More blood on the counter. A trail

  of it. Drops of blood on the bottom

  of the refrigerator where the fish

  lay wrapped and gutted.

  Everywhere this blood. Mingling with thoughts

  in my mind of the time we’d had —

  that dear young wife, and I.

  Memory [I]

  Cutting the stems from a quart

  basket of strawberries—the first

  this spring—looking forward to how

  I would eat them tonight, when I was

  alone, for a treat (Tess being away),

  I remembered I forgot to pass along

  a message to her when we talked:

  somebody whose name I forget

  called to say Susan Powell’s

  grandmother had died, suddenly.

  Went on working with the strawberries.

  But remembered, too, driving back

  from the store. A little girl

  on roller skates being pulled along

  the road by this big friendly-

  looking dog. I waved to her.

  She waved back. And called out

  sharply to her dog, who kept

  trying to nose around

  in the sweet ditch grass.

  It’s nearly dark outside now.

  Strawberries are chilling.

  A little later on, when I eat them,

  I’ll be reminded again—in no particular

  order—of Tess, the little girl, a dog,

  roller skates, memory, death, etc.

  Away

  I had forgotten about the quail that live

  on the hillside over behind Art and Marilyn’s

  place. I opened up the house, made a fire,

  and afterwards slept like a dead man.

  The next morning there were quail in the drive

  and in the bushes outside the front window.

  I talked to you on the phone.

  Tried to joke. Don’t worry

  about me, I said, I have the quail

  for company. Well, they took flight

  when I opened the door. A week later

  and they still haven’t come back. When I look

  at the silent telephone I think of quail.

  When I think of the quail and how they

  went away, I remember talking to you that morning

  and how the receiver lay in my hand. My heart —

  the blurred things it was doing at the time.

  Music

  Franz Liszt eloped with Countess Marie d’Agoult,

  who wrote novels. Polite society washed its hands

  of him, and his novelist-countess-whore.

  Liszt gave her three children, and
music.

  Then went off with Princess Wittgenstein.

  Cosima, Liszt’s daughter, married

  the conductor, Hans von Bülow.

  But Richard Wagner stole her. Took her away

  to Bayreuth. Where Liszt showed up one morning.

  Long white hair flouncing.

  Shaking his fist. Music. Music!

  Everybody grew more famous.

  Plus

  “Lately I’ve been eating a lot of pork.

  Plus, I eat too many eggs and things,”

  this guy said to me in the doc’s office.

  “I pour on the salt. I drink twenty cups

  of coffee every day. I smoke.

  I’m having trouble with my breathing.”

  Then lowered his eyes.

  “Plus, I don’t always clear off the table

  when I’m through eating. I forget.

  I just get up and walk away.

  Goodbye until the next time, brother.

  Mister, what do you think’s happening to me?”

  He was describing my own symptoms to a T.

  I said, “What do you think’s happening?

  You’re losing your marbles. And then

  you’re going to die. Or vice versa.

  What about sweets? Are you partial

  to cinnamon rolls and ice cream?”

  “Plus, I crave all that,” he said.

  By this time we were at a place called Friendly’s.

  We looked at menus and went on talking.

  Dinner music played from a radio

  in the kitchen. It was our song, see.

  It was our table.

  All Her Life

  I lay down for a nap. But every time I closed my eyes,

  mares’ tails passed slowly over the Strait

  toward Canada. And the waves. They rolled up on the beach

  and then back again. You know I don’t dream.

  But last night I dreamt we were watching

  a burial at sea. At first I was astonished.

  And then filled with regret. But you

  touched my arm and said, “No, it’s all right.

  She was very old, and he’d loved her all her life.”

  The Hat

  Walking around on our first day

  in Mexico City, we come to a sidewalk café

  on Reforma Avenue where a man in a hat

  sits drinking a beer.