That Said (5 page)

our house, must have known,

and the Bassages before him, the Knoxes

before them, all five Peck boys

and girls, their father, and his father

 

before him—farmer who felled

the trees, positioned the beams,

pitched the view just so—storm clouds

scuttling away, sun warming his back,

like that first astonished witness

on his homemade ark, beholding

the covenant, the promise.

Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.

—Emily Dickinson, 419

 

For my parents

Chilled moonrise, his mother now in bed,

her terror tranquilizing with the cold idea,

we scoured the neighborhood with searchlights,

the woods behind his school; the lumberyard's

cesspool, a black moon in the grass, called

everyone and no one, called to me.

Jackknifed in the pipe, he could not shinny up

the mud and ooze, the narrow walls collapsing,

dark water notching up his spine.

Did he see me swimming in the glazed eye

of light he woke to, did he wake at all,

as the icy noose of water tightened around

his chin, the north star of the squad car

flashing? Navigating by touch and shadow,

our lasso caught his feet. We tugged.

His head slipped deeper in the cavity.

Helpless, I held my breath. Hand over hand,

we hauled him up and out into the humming air:

limp and shivering, feet-first.

He swung a long moment over us, shiny,

bigger than we thought, his face bruised blue

by metallic light. Cold gravity; release.

He whined like nothing human in my arms.

 

1

 

Outside the bay windows

the sky fills up with snow.

The pentangular wall of night

reflects my reading lamp

into a constellation.

But a neighbor glancing in

can see just one lamp shining.

 

The calendar windows

seal off a winter landscape too.

Skaters glide across a pond

over the round window in the ice.

Behind the shutters of a stall

an aproned carpenter

sweeps sawdust into a pile,

barely enough to fill a thimble.

 

A child peers through

the bakery window.

I slit along the window frame,

lifting the boy and glass wall of tortes

off into a prophecy...

 

As his window swings open

the boy sees himself

up to his elbows in flour

beside a pyramid of loaves.

Is the night wind sifting the flour?

Has a blizzard turned the kitchen

inside out?

 

Oh woman in the foreground

with your beautiful skirts,

do you contain a window too—

like the church's arched door

opening on a nave of tiny worshipers?

Behind the clerestory window

a crèche appears—

the Madonna mobbed by putti,

the infant cushioned

on the backs of sheep.

 

Madonna of the Beautiful Skirts,

you carried into Egypt

within your body

a world of such belief!

I can only carry

myself into my life.

In my windowed room, only I

am multiplied

and pray to be whole.

 

 

 

2

 

These lives I randomly

release into the world

like doves!

 

In seconds I do it!

I unlock the stalls,

twenty-three windows open,

all but the window of the moon.

 

I used to wish those numbered days

would vanish, a miracle!

But would hurrying

break the spell,

would the windows turn real

and shatter in my eyes?

 

Better to shut them,

keep the future out,

as this last window

of the moon stays shut.

But who can resist

the moon's bright eye

in this paper sky,

or any other?

 

Once, looking for the moon,

at the far end

of the telescope, I saw

the echo of my own dark eye

shining. The more I tried

to take the glass away, the more

that eye deepened into mine,

burning beyond the human shape

the self takes on.

 

Can light be so intense

the future's in a glance?

If I hold my hand to light,

the bright lattice of my bones

shines through.

 

3

 

Stars are falling.

I open the crescent window of the moon.

Inside, a man is hiking in sheer daylight

clear across Tibet where it is day.

The mountain peaks break in yellow waves

as the man walks unconcerned

on a tide of birds.

Morning lies behind this window,

the window of sunrise,

its movement over the world

arrives always with gifts in both arms.

Oh summer, if you would only come

with your big baskets of flowers,

dropping by like an old friend

just passing through the neighborhood!

 

If you came to my door disguised

as a thirsty biblical angel

I'd buy all your hairbrushes and magazines!

I'd be more hospitable

than any ancient king.

 

I'd personally carry your luggage in.

Your monsoons. Your squadrons of bugs.

Your plums and lovely melons.

Let the rose let out its long long sigh.

And Desire return to the hapless rabbit.

 

This request is also in my own behalf.

Inside my head it is always snowing,

even when I sleep. When I wake up,

and still you have not arrived,

I curl back into my blizzard of linens.

 

Not like winter's buckets of whitewash.

Please wallpaper my bedroom

with leafy vegetables and farms.

If you knocked right now,

I would not interfere.

Start near the window.

Start right here.

Along the creek girls are lifting

their thin skirts and as they bend

low, under their loose scoop-neck

blouses the pale flesh shows.

They notice you and wave, turn back

again laughing, dipping their feet

into the cool water. Now scarves go;

they unpin their hair. On the banks

the grass turns down like sheets

and the sun is big and close.

You can barely see them through

the heat as they peel and peel away

their clothes. And when they open

their slender arms to you, thinking

they are doing this because they

want to, thinking there is a choice,

who can blame them for giving in

this easily, or you, nearer now

to yourself than ever as they pull

you with them, sister, down.

Woozy from death they hog the camera

that revives them, blinking like children

we shook awake. Intensities of plaid

coagulate on screen. One distant cousin.

Above the picnic baskets, bobbing

like icebergs they investigate the silence

each time we run them through the same

embarrassing routines. I am swimming.

In the river my father's trousers cling,

two drooping cylinders. He stumbles

toward us, digs deep, retrieves a cow bone.

Thrusts it like a barbell above his head.

Soloing, my uncle handles his trombone

careful as dentures. Next to me his widow

stiffens. An aunt glides by with a thermos.

We are kept always out of earshot,

safe. Clutching their trophies they wave

us off. I forget how cold the water was.

You will go on a long journey

You will have a happy and healthy life

You will recover valuables thought lost

You will marry and have many children

 

You will have a happy and healthy life

Your sweetheart will always be faithful

You will marry and have many children

You will have many friends when you need them

 

Your sweetheart will always be faithful

Soon you will come into a large inheritance

You will have many friends when you need them

You will succeed in your line of work

 

Soon you will come into a large inheritance

You will travel to many new places

You will succeed in your line of work

Be suspicious of well-meaning strangers

 

You will travel to many new places