LISTENING IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY I

 

They say now that the forbidden fruit was not

An apple so much as a sort of mango. Preposterous!

In my hand is the very apple, two bites out of it

Just as Eve gave it to me. She'd picked it up

From where Adam dropped it and kept it

For centuries, passing it along from one version of her

To the next. The apple, I must say, still looks 

Pretty fresh. Eves, though, are not obliged

To stay unwithered. Soon enough someone --

You, perhaps? -- will come by the museum 

And stop a moment in front of my picture:

"Probably Annis Cook, Holding An Apple."

If you're kind, put something in my suddenly empty hand

A snuff-box, say, or perhaps a mango.

NAMING

 

My mother's death, seventeen today,

Tired of being an absence, insists

She needs a name of her own. (Also,

She would appreciate it if I'd think of her

Wearing a hat -- perhaps the one with a half-veil

My mother lost on the subway in 1956.)

My father's death, almost thirteen, suggests "Olive"

Which rather appeals to her until she realizes

He's probably thinking of Olive Oyl. She tells him no

And warns him to not even try suggesting

Tess Trueheart, Minerva Gump or Daisy-Mae Scragg.

SKETCH

 

Wind has blown this crowd of atoms 

Into saints, soldiers, a man half-naked

And lying on the ground and an angel

With a drawn sword. They urgently seek

Ways of not being unmade again. The saints

Talk of resignation; the angel

Preaches resistance; others urge some way

Be found to discover what language

The wind speaks and what words 

Might move it to pity or break its stubborn heart.

SINCE YOU'VE ASKED

 

The god you seek -- the one who could. 

Answer all your wisely-made prayers

And spend long hours with you

Comfortably silent but willing to talk --

Is currently stationed with a small tribe

In Papua, New Guinea. There's no internet 

And the mail is unreliable. Somehow

You must make yourself known to him.

In Brassaï's photo

 

It is always a night 1932 and two cats

Are holding a meeting on a corner in Paris

Like other travelers you may find

You've entered the frame and lost

The way out. Look hard; there is

Towards the lower left, a passage

To Gabriel Loppé's photo of the Eiffel Tower

Being struck by lightning in 1889

From there you can catch the last street-car.

GAME

 

If my grandfather Joe had been born

In a world without chess he would,

Of course, have invented it

His knights' dreams might be troubled;

His bishops, for a consideration,

Might switch their colors; his pawns

Would each have made a plan

For making a life in a kingless republic.

WORKS OF ART

 

In the Kunsthistorisches Museum there are

Seventeen paintings of Judith

Holding the Head of Holofernes and fourteen

Of Salome with Saint John's Head on a Platter

Advantage: Judiths. But Judiths need one hand

To hold Holofernes' head; Salomes' platters can rest

On a ledge or a table. Advantage: Salomes.

One of the Judiths -- the one Cranach painted

In 1530 -- is also Heintz' Judith from 1600;

She hasn't even bothered to change her dress,

Her expression or her floppy red hat.

Sometimes she leaves both heads

On Salome's platter and goes for a cup

Of herbal tea in the employees' break room.

When she comes back she takes a head

And calls it Holofernes. No real matter;

They look pretty much the same.

SKETCHING

 

Tired of being ignored my father's hand

Would start drawing -- men with pipes,

Women with hats, a wolfmonster

Juggling fish and cans of soup. Sometimes

The figures read a book or danced together

Or argued with a television set. Cats might appear

Or dogs or birds or angels. If the Thimble Theater

Was dark, Popeye might come by and sit

Playing sad songs on a concertina 

Until Olive Oyl and Wimpy came with a barrow

And wheeled him home. 

                                 Very occasionally

My father's hand would draw in my primitive style

Or flawlessly copy one of my mother's two doodles:

Twined figure eights or a flower in a flowerpot.

SEEING THINGS

 

My grandfather could look

At the moon and know

What time it was. He was,

Though, given to secrets

And would insist it was 

Five minutes earlier or later.

On any walk with him

There was a fair chance 

He'd spot a chess piece

On the sidewalk, in the grass

And, once, in a bird's nest.

A MATTER OF TIME

Not too far in, the hero -- nice but inconsequent -- 

Drowses in an old house. From a tapestry

A figure emerges, looks at him and then

Steps back. This happens every time anyone

Reads the book. Someday, though the figure,

Will change her mind and become

Part of the story, leaving the hero asleep

As she turns and twists the plot into one

That suits her better -- one with bright colors

And unlikely figures dancing in the margins.

KEEPING TABS

 

Since they've died my mother

Seldom visits her father. She gets reports

From fox-girls whom she sends

To watch him and to watch out for him

And discusses him with her stepmother

(They get along much better

When there's no need to pretend love.)

Being dead is apparently

More complicated than I thought

For one thing, why the fox-girls?

DOMINIC

 

He certainly wouldn't like me

Nor I him but I admit that Dominic,

Godfather of the Inquisition,

Was a hands-on saint, rescuing Servando

By tossing him a small magic hammer 

That broke his chains and then

Throwing him a rope so the saint

Could, hand over hand, pull the scoundrel

From the pit where he was imprisoned.

What adventures they must have had

Making their way back to Christian lands,

Stealing food, sleeping in trees or barns

Or, on cold nights, burrowed in haystacks