All of Us Read online

  and were tossed into the bucket.

  Me thinking all the while

  of those early days in Yakima.

  And smooth-as-silk underpants.

  The lingering kind that Jeanne wore,

  and Rita, Muriel, Sue, and her sister,

  Cora Mae. All those girls.

  Grownup now. Or worse.

  I’ll say it: dead.

  Radio Waves

  FOR ANTONIO MACHADO

  This rain has stopped, and the moon has come out.

  I don’t understand the first thing about radio

  waves. But I think they travel better just after

  a rain, when the air is damp. Anyway, I can reach out

  now and pick up Ottawa, if I want to, or Toronto.

  Lately, at night, I’ve found myself

  becoming slightly interested in Canadian politics

  and domestic affairs. It’s true. But mostly it was their

  music stations I was after. I could sit here in the chair

  and listen, without having to do anything, or think.

  I don’t have a TV, and I’d quit reading

  the papers. At night I turned on the radio.

  When I came out here I was trying to get away

  from everything. Especially literature.

  What that entails, and what comes after.

  There is in the soul a desire for not thinking.

  For being still. Coupled with this

  a desire to be strict, yes, and rigorous.

  But the soul is also a smooth son of a bitch,

  not always trustworthy. And I forgot that.

  I listened when it said, Better to sing that which is gone

  and will not return than that which is still

  with us and will be with us tomorrow. Or not.

  And if not, that’s all right too.

  It didn’t much matter, it said, if a man sang at all.

  That’s the voice I listened to.

  Can you imagine somebody thinking like this?

  That it’s really all one and the same?

  What nonsense!

  But I’d think these stupid thoughts at night

  as I sat in the chair and listened to my radio.

  Then, Machado, your poetry!

  It was a little like a middle-aged man falling

  in love again. A remarkable thing to witness,

  and embarrassing, too.

  Silly things like putting your picture up.

  And I took your book to bed with me

  and slept with it near at hand. A train went by

  in my dreams one night and woke me up.

  And the first thing I thought, heart racing

  there in the dark bedroom, was this —

  It’s all right, Machado is here.

  Then I could fall back to sleep again.

  Today I took your book with me when I went

  for my walk. “Pay attention!” you said,

  when anyone asked what to do with their lives.

  So I looked around and made note of everything.

  Then sat down with it in the sun, in my place

  beside the river where I could see the mountains.

  And I closed my eyes and listened to the sound

  of the water. Then I opened them and began to read

  “Abel Martin’s Last Lamentations.”

  This morning I thought about you hard, Machado.

  And I hope, even in the face of what I know about death,

  that you got the message I intended.

  But it’s okay even if you didn’t. Sleep well. Rest.

  Sooner or later I hope we’ll meet.

  And then I can tell you these things myself.

  Movement

  Driving lickety-split to make the ferry!

  Snow Creek and then Dog Creek

  fly by in the headlights.

  But the hour’s all wrong—no time to think

  about the sea-run trout there.

  In the lee of the mountains

  something on the radio about an old woman

  who travels around inside a kettle.

  Indigence is at the root of our lives, yes,

  but this is not right.

  Cut that old woman some slack,

  for God’s sake.

  She’s somebody’s mother.

  You there! It’s late. Imagine yourself

  with the lid coming down.

  The hymns and requiems. The sense of movement

  as you’re borne along to the next place.

  Hominy and Rain

  In a little patch of ground beside

  the wall of the Earth Sciences building,

  a man in a canvas hat was on

  his knees doing something in the rain

  with some plants. Piano music

  came from an upstairs window

  in the building next door. Then

  the music stopped.

  And the window was brought down.

  You told me those white blossoms

  on the cherry trees in the Quad

  smelled like a can of just-opened

  hominy. Hominy. They reminded you

  of that. This may or may not

  be true. I can’t say.

  I’ve lost my sense of smell,

  along with any interest I may ever

  have expressed in working

  on my knees with plants, or

  vegetables. There was a barefoot

  madman with a ring in his ear

  playing his guitar and singing

  reggae. I remember that.

  Rain puddling around his feet.

  The place he’d picked to stand

  had Welcome Fear

  painted on the sidewalk in red letters.

  At the time it seemed important

  to recall the man on his knees

  in front of his plants.

  The blossoms. Music of one kind,

  and another. Now I’m not so sure.

  I can’t say, for sure.

  It’s a little like some tiny cave-in,

  in my brain. There’s a sense

  that I’ve lost—not everything,

  not everything, but far too much.

  A part of my life forever.

  Like hominy.

  Even though your arm stayed linked

  in mine. Even though that. Even

  though we stood quietly in the

  doorway as the rain picked up.

  And watched it without saying

  anything. Stood quietly.

  At peace, I think. Stood watching

  the rain. While the one

  with the guitar played on.

  The Road

  What a rough night! It’s either no dreams at all,

  or else a dream that may or may not be

  a dream portending loss. Last night I was dropped off

  without a word on a country road.

  A house back in the hills showed a light

  no bigger than a star.

  But I was afraid to go there, and kept walking.

  Then to wake up to rain striking the glass.

  Flowers in a vase near the window.

  The smell of coffee, and you touching your hair

  with a gesture like someone who has been gone for years.

  But there’s a piece of bread under the table

  near your feet. And a line of ants

  moving back and forth from a crack in the floor.

  You’ve stopped smiling.

  Do me a favor this morning. Draw the curtain and come back to bed.

  Forget the coffee. We’ll pretend

  we’re in a foreign country, and in love.

  Fear

  Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.

  Fear of falling asleep at night.

  Fear of not falling asleep.

  Fear of the past rising up.

  Fear of the present taking flight.

  Fear of the t
elephone that rings in the dead of night.

  Fear of electrical storms.

  Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!

  Fear of dogs I’ve been told won’t bite.

  Fear of anxiety!

  Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.

  Fear of running out of money.

  Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.

  Fear of psychological profiles.

  Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else.

  Fear of my children’s handwriting on envelopes.

  Fear they’ll die before I do, and I’ll feel guilty.

  Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine.

  Fear of confusion.

  Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.

  Fear of waking up to find you gone.

  Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.

  Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.

  Fear of death.

  Fear of living too long.

  Fear of death.

  I’ve said that.

  Romanticism

  (FOR LINDA GREGG,

  AFTER READING “CLASSICISM”)

  The nights are very unclear here.

  But if the moon is full, we know it.

  We feel one thing one minute,

  something else the next.

  The Ashtray

  You could write a story about this

  ashtray, for example, and a man and a

  woman. But the man and woman are

  always the two poles of your story.

  The North Pole and the South. Every

  story has these two poles—he and she.

  — A. P. CHEKHOV

  They’re alone at the kitchen table in her friend’s

  apartment. They’ll be alone for another hour, and then

  her friend will be back. Outside, it’s raining —

  the rain coming down like needles, melting last week’s

  snow. They’re smoking and using the ashtray … Maybe

  just one of them is smoking…He’s smoking! Never

  mind. Anyway, the ashtray is filling up with

  cigarettes and ashes.

  She’s ready to break into tears at any minute.

  To plead with him, in fact, though she’s proud

  and has never asked for anything in her life.

  He sees what’s coming, recognizes the signs —

  a catch in her voice as she brings her fingers

  to her locket, the one her mother left her.

  He pushes back his chair, gets up, goes over to

  the window … He wishes it were tomorrow and he

  were at the races. He wishes he was out walking,

  using his umbrella … He strokes his mustache

  and wishes he were anywhere except here. But

  he doesn’t have any choice in the matter. He’s got

  to put a good face on this for everybody’s sake.

  God knows, he never meant for things to come

  to this. But it’s sink or swim now. A wrong

  move and he stands to lose her friend, too.

  Her breathing slows. She watches him but

  doesn’t say anything. She knows, or thinks she

  knows, where this is leading. She passes a hand

  over her eyes, leans forward and puts her head

  in her hands. She’s done this a few times

  before, but has no idea it’s something

  that drives him wild. He looks away and grinds

  his teeth. He lights a cigarette, shakes out

  the match, stands a minute longer at the window.

  Then walks back to the table and sits

  down with a sigh. He drops the match in the ashtray.

  She reaches for his hand, and he lets her

  take it. Why not? Where’s the harm?

  Let her. His mind’s made up. She covers his

  fingers with kisses, tears fall onto his wrist.

  He draws on his cigarette and looks at her

  as a man would look indifferently on

  a cloud, a tree, or a field of oats at sunset.

  He narrows his eyes against the smoke. From time

  to time he uses the ashtray as he waits

  for her to finish weeping.

  Still Looking Out for

  Number One

  Now that you’ve gone away for five days,

  I’ll smoke all the cigarettes I want,

  where I want. Make biscuits and eat them

  with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge

  myself. Walk on the beach if I feel

  like it. And I feel like it, alone and

  thinking about when I was young. The people

  then who loved me beyond reason.

  And how I loved them above all others.

  Except one. I’m saying I’ll do everything

  I want here while you’re away!

  But there’s one thing I won’t do.

  I won’t sleep in our bed without you.

  No. It doesn’t please me to do so.

  I’ll sleep where I damn well feel like it —

  where I sleep best when you’re away

  and I can’t hold you the way I do.

  On the broken sofa in my study.

  Where Water Comes Together

  with Other Water

  I love creeks and the music they make.

  And rills, in glades and meadows, before

  they have a chance to become creeks.

  I may even love them best of all

  for their secrecy. I almost forgot

  to say something about the source!

  Can anything be more wonderful than a spring?

  But the big streams have my heart too.

  And the places streams flow into rivers.

  The open mouths of rivers where they join the sea.

  The places where water comes together

  with other water. Those places stand out

  in my mind like holy places.

  But these coastal rivers!

  I love them the way some men love horses

  or glamorous women. I have a thing

  for this cold swift water.

  Just looking at it makes my blood run

  and my skin tingle. I could sit

  and watch these rivers for hours.

  Not one of them like any other.

  I’m 45 years old today.

  Would anyone believe it if I said

  I was once 35?

  My heart empty and sere at 35!

  Five more years had to pass

  before it began to flow again.

  I’ll take all the time I please this afternoon

  before leaving my place alongside this river.

  It pleases me, loving rivers.

  Loving them all the way back

  to their source.

  Loving everything that increases me.

  II

  Happiness

  So early it’s still almost dark out.

  I’m near the window with coffee,

  and the usual early morning stuff

  that passes for thought.

  When I see the boy and his friend

  walking up the road

  to deliver the newspaper.

  They wear caps and sweaters,

  and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

  They are so happy

  they aren’t saying anything, these boys.

  I think if they could, they would take

  each other’s arm.

  It’s early in the morning,

  and they are doing this thing together.

  They come on, slowly.

  The sky is taking on light,

  though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

  Such beauty that for a minute

  death and ambition, even love,

  doesn’t enter into thi
s.

  Happiness. It comes on

  unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

  any early morning talk about it.

  The Old Days

  You’d dozed in front of the TV

  but you hadn’t been to bed yet

  when you called. I was asleep,

  or nearly, when the phone rang.

  You wanted to tell me you’d thrown

  a party. And I was missed.

  It was like the old days, you

  said, and laughed.

  Dinner was a disaster.

  Everybody dead drunk by the time

  food hit the table. People

  were having a good time, a great

  time, a hell of a time, until

  somebody took somebody

  else’s fiancée upstairs. Then

  somebody pulled a knife.

  But you got in front of the guy

  as he was going upstairs

  and talked him down.

  Disaster narrowly averted,

  you said, and laughed again.

  You didn’t remember much else

  of what happened after that.

  People got into their coats

  and began to leave. You

  must have dropped off for a few

  minutes in front of the TV

  because it was screaming at you

  to get it a drink when you woke up.

  Anyway, you’re in Pittsburgh,

  and I’m in here in this

  little town on the other side

  of the country. Most everyone

  has cleared out of our lives now.

  You wanted to call me up and say hello.

  To say you were thinking

  about me, and of the old days.

  To say you were missing me.

  It was then I remembered

  back to those days and how

  telephones used to jump when they rang.

  And the people who would come

  in those early-morning hours

  to pound on the door in alarm.

  Never mind the alarm felt inside.

  I remembered that, and gravy dinners.

  Knives lying around, waiting

  for trouble. Going to bed

  and hoping I wouldn’t wake up.

  I love you, Bro, you said.

  And then a sob passed

  between us. I took hold

  of the receiver as if