Close your eyes and think of a time where you felt happy
—an invitation with no expectation of RSVP
to get away from this place. In the mind,
a time where I was exactly like other girls
flanked by two artworks of emotion and potential
to dance in the pattern of sprinklers and laugh
with the joy of the unobserved
to try to fit into each others’ bikinis and lose all our air in laughter and tightness
to eat cherries and spit the stones at
each others’ breasts
to catch something fleeting
on the beat of a sun setting, heat draining
away from burnt legs like stones
weighing us down, bringing us back
as the evening cooled and the oozing shadows meant
it was time to cloak ourselves again.
A man knelt in a dry field.
He accused a handful of dirt.
The soil argued little.
Brittle clods dissolved
into fine dust. The man
stood, brushed his hands,
stared at the bright field.
Parallel rows converged
toward a line of trees.
Its far edge shimmered.
A water tower glared
around a town’s name.
The man turned his back
on the tower, the town,
the field, the empty sky.
II
The man crossed his yard, reached his house,
stepped across his own initials and his father’s.
He climbed concrete steps to the porch.
He waited for the heat to subside.
Heat’s full tide lapped motionless limbs,
inundated the house. Doors and windows
stood open, inviting any breeze. In still rooms,
heat settled in stagnant pools.
III
Shadows crept into the void of departing light.
They met in open places, conspired,
grew strong. As heat and light ebbed,
a thermal essence remained.
Night voices grew bold. They talked
among themselves, confident, open.
Insect dialects recounted
stories of summer and drought;
of patience; the role of extremes
in the hard maintenance of averages.
The voices talked at length,
and the man on his porch
listened for mention of rain.
IV
Heat slept in stillness, motionless,
a calm sea. It stirred in the early hours
to welcome pink and orange light, a tide
drawing strength from the sun. It surged,
broke into day, swept across the land.
Heat flowed under trees, through open windows,
woke the man and his wife. When it reached
the limits of land and air, it grew deep.
The man rose. He waded into another day.
V
Mid-morning, unbearable sun. The man
closed the hood of his truck, removed his cap.
Sweat stung the corners of his eyes.
He squinted at the bright field,
rows of fading plants. Beyond,
the water tower stood resolute, but
grayer than the day before, its glare dispersed.
The man studied the scene, replaced his cap,
walked to the house for relief.
VI
The man’s wife emerged from relative darkness.
He and she faced each other across the porch.
Thought I’d do some shelling, she said.
Want to sit with me a while?
Yeah. I’ll get back to the truck
when the sun ain’t on it.
His wife placed a paper bag full of beans
beside her rocker, set a bowl and empty bag
in the seat, turned to go back inside.
How about some tea?
That would hit the spot.
He sat, hung his hat on the stile.
His wife disappeared into sounds.
The refrigerator door swept open,
popped shut.
Ice cubes cracked from trays,
clinked into glasses,
crackled when tea startled them.
A knife snapped twice on a board,
cut two pieces of lemon.
Refrigerator door again,
pitcher and lemon returned to cool refuge.
The man’s wife stepped onto the porch.
She handed him a glass, placed hers
on the table between them.
She sat and arranged her work.
The man took a long swallow,
balanced his glass on the arm of his chair.
Tea tasted good and strong, smelled crisp and bright.
Condensation ran onto the man’s fingers.
Another hot one, the woman said.
Today’s another scorcher.
Seems muggy, too. That makes it worse.
I wish the mugginess would decide to cloud up
and give us some rain.
The woman’s nimble hands shelled beans into the bowl,
discarded husks into the paper bag. Think it will?
Hard to say.
He rattled ice, took another swallow.
If it stays muggy it may come up a cloud
somewhere, this afternoon or tomorrow.
No telling.
Dull crumps
beat
a slow rhythm
as the woman
tossed aside
byproduct
of her work.
The man rocked to the cadence,
stared past the yard.
Staccato lines of stunted plants
ran to a tree line. Beyond, brightness
hazed and spread up,
curved back, the sky
a claustrophobic dome.
The woman appraised his face, tried
to think of what to say.
She shelled butterbeans from their pods,
pale green moons falling in soft beats
into the bowl in her lap.
I believe we might get a shower.
I don’t know, he said. I just don’t know.
VII
Breath, and music.
His wife respiring
and the song of nocturnal insects
pulled the man awake.
He lay without a sheet,
thought of his wife
and himself
exposed, dependent
on the night for comfort,
on the day for light,
the season for a crop.
Dependence stood in the room
haunting the night.
The man felt helpless
lying in the dark.
Light sweat draped his skin
like a caul. A caprice of night air
passed through the room.
Despite the heat, the man shivered.
He pulled up the sheet
to protect himself and his wife.
A fuller breeze followed,
inflating sheer curtains like sails.
The man drifted to join his wife.
VIII
The man rose before the sun.
He ate a hard biscuit, drank buttermilk.
He walked onto the porch,
out the screen door, down
the steps to the yard.
He approached his truck.
He set about tending a dying farm.
Heat washed over the land.
The ground grew hot, the air
stifled all impulse. By mid-morning
the man retired to his porch.
He sat as on the previous day
and the day before, and
he watched the trees shine
defiant green. Such still air.
Cicadas buzzed in one tree
and then another, singly,
not in the chorus of the night.
The man watched, listened. He heard
everything telling him to wait.
Drone of insects
caused the man to nod. Sleep.
He sat waking and dozing
into early afternoon.
His wife came to call him to lunch
but decided not to disturb him.
Instead she took a seat.
She looked at her husband, his head
bent forward as if listening to someone
pray. Then she looked across
the road at the field and the sky above.
She rested her tired eyes on a cloud.
The woman watched the cloud.
She prayed it would come their way
or pass before her husband woke.
A shadow drifted across the far trees
onto the field. It crossed the road
to meet tree shadows in the yard.
Silent lap of shadow on shadow
startled the insects, stopping their songs.
In the sudden quiet the man awoke,
puzzled at the silence and the field
that no longer blared midday glare.
He stared at the mounting cloud,
then looked to his wife. She smiled.
Looks like we might get some rain.
The man beheld a cumulus dreadnaught
floating in a deep new sky. Darkness
touched its hull down low. Brilliance
thrust upward, white billows piled on billows.
Air carried the cloud slowly, as if
it had the density of granite.
The mass and its shadow drifted
above the man’s field and his house.
From across the road, he received
the report of countless impacts.
IX
The man opened his door
to meet the rain
as it came into his yard.
His wife watched him reach
toward the first few drops.
They hesitated, assented, fell harder.
The man crossed the yard and road
to step into his field. Power and majesty
spoke in monosyllable raindrops
that blurred into words and into
a single word that meant possibility.
He said, “Lord, I’m
standing on a fine line.”
The din increased.
The cloud gave forth
a downpour.
Water washed anxiety
from the grateful man.
The ground darkened.
X
The man cried from the sky
to the ground, tears like rain.
god never withheld visions
even joseph owned a bronze bowl
for scrying
imagine
it filled with burnt bones
am i still the boy
my brothers threw in the hole?
pareidola
man’s tendency to see patterns
where there are none
this finger bone reveals
his brothers are alive
this knuckle tells him
throw benjamin in prison
and grow up like his father
a deceiver
lord over his brothers
set above them
in famine
banished to this land
their descendants enslaved
but god sends messages
to men like moses
signs like the burning bush
demand
we remove our shoes and sandals
this is holy ground
it says
cinders burn bare feet.
apophenia
man’s curse to see connections
where there are none
if a bush
combusts
speaks
it might be god
go free his people from bondage
and grow up a prophet
but for forty years
in the wilderness
wander
a generation dies
punishment
for listening to a burning bush
or listening to a talking donkey
like balaam
the oracle called to curse israel
he did the wise thing
struck it with his staff
just in case
it wasn’t a sign of
schizophrenia
man’s disease to hear voices
where there are none
or for balaam
god’s voice
it was wise to obey
a talking donkey.
and grow up forgotten,
save sunday school lessons
he is the fool
the donkey saw
an angel on the road
he didn’t know
i asked god
for a vision of the future,
no bronze bowl
no burning bush
no talking donkey
i prayed and prayed
and prayed
When you touch the edge of something hot—a frying-pan, a clothes-iron—you gasp and flinch away, before the knowledge, before the shock and the hurt and the searing of flesh. Locked in the thumping of your heart then, there is the secret triumph of assault successfully withstood, the inexpressible comfort of knowing it could not and cannot hurt you because you did and can again make it stop. But the drenching heat of liquid cannot be flung off, only sponged and coaxed away from the skin. And so they say doodh ka jala, chhaachh bhi phook phook kar peeta hai. It doesn’t take all men, you see, it takes only one; and just so, it takes only one vile lie to break a language’s heart.
When first you write a lie, a real lie and not simply a truth incognito, whether it be falsehood or treacherous half-truth, language recoils from you in pain, vowing never to trust you with words again. But if you must go on writing lies, for money or grundy-respect, seize the language and let it feel the sting and the trickling fear of the skin parting company with the flesh, over and over and over again, as you hold it unscreaming under the current. You must let body and mind and heart and soul be quite maimed then, until there is no difference left for any of them between truth and lie, between the coldness of lassi and the heat of milk-tides rising from the saucepan. Thereafter you may plunder with impunity all of language and force it to house your lies. And if you will never again find words to tell a truth in, it will not matter, for you will have no truths left to tell.
Almost every weekend that summer,
you would join me on the porch at dusk.
As the night wore on we could see a raccoon
or possum stalking past, nothing visible
but its eyes and the silhouette of fur.
We are the sum of our parts, you would say.
Or, I am not living, only existing.
Words nothing like your flannel shirt,
or the glow of the streetlights,
or the thick scent of pine trees.
That August two hard rains fell.
Before and after heat hung in the air
like claws stuck in prey and steam caught in my throat.
I heard yesterday that you got a job
with a logging company up north.
That you don’t speak to many people.
You read books, smoke, sit on your porch at night.
Once that August I opened your cedar box
to reach for a cigar and when I looked up
you were watching me.
Your look reminded me of a photo
I saw earlier that summer in a psychiatric museum.
The man was chained to a wall with an iron ring
around his neck, his feet bound with cloth.
An hour before the photo he may have been spun in a cage
or shaken or kicked or doused with water,
and still he remained tucked away.
He stared at the camera with his deep-set eyes
I draw that circle of protection around me
keeping me safe,
breathing in the shadows
of simmering love
and gulping the elixir
the concoction of love;
the reason for my sustenance,
like those mahogany swinging in the wild.
The nape of my neck
feeling the apricity
a warm embrace;
as if the skin speaks of your love
the warm undulation to which
my heaving chest conforms
a feeling so sublime.
The symphony to which my breast syncopates
you are carved inside my soul
deeply seeded,
like those endless moles
which your gelid fingers counted
in the frothy moonlight
on my undulating back.
As it rises and falls back with passion
that smoldering aroma,
of your breath interlaced with mine.
It births a thousand poem
those gyrating hips,
in that naked moment
when your heart
called me, mine.
