Occasionally in pictures which
Have nothing to do with her I find
My grandfather's second wife
Fanny. She looks implacable;
Having made her way into the photo
She'll not be gotten rid of. In time
People will say "Oh, that must be Dora
Or Hepzibah or could it be Elinor
Who put on a few pounds once Al died?"
They'll be wrong, though; I know Fanny
When I see her. My mother told me
In our last conversation "Fanny
Was very hard on me but then I
Was not an easy child to raise."
Max's children had names
Only Max used. (My father's
Was Sock and after 1956
No one ever called him Sock)
Of the names he made up
I know three: Sock, Napugi
And Gininganoy. (I write them
Lest they be lost too.)
Were there nine names or eight?
My Aunt Edith died as a baby so
Perhaps there hadn't been time?
Nonsense! How else could Max
Have greeted her slight spirit
Or told her it was time to depart?
Though the god of poverty's pockets have
Holes in them he never lacks things
Of no use to him or to anyone
Chipped marbles, bent nails, inkless pens,
The key to a house that burned down in 1946
A picture of that house with a dead man
Smiling on the porch and a dead woman
Looking out from an upstairs window.
Long ago someone gave me
A Buddha. He's green and about
Three-fifths of an inch tall and
Easily lost. Fortunately
He can take care of himself
And always turns up again
His left hand saying welcome
His right saying no fear.
Scrawny, half-grown gods
Used to haunt the sails of ships
Doing well or woe to sailors -- a knot
Made double-tight, a patch that held,
New canvas that tore when the wind blew.
They taunted the cats, killed the rats
And fed on oaths and tales and smoke
From banked fires. Some of them now
With a knack for it haunt trading houses
Leading numbers astray and making winds rise
In corridors where no winds should be.
The Angel of Death, having a rough night,
Was none too pleased to find Max
Attended by Thuisko, Tzontemoc, Hermes,
Maeve, Libitina, two of the Nameless Ones
And a banshee (A banshee of all things!
He hadn't seen one in years.) A wayoob
Was taking Max's pulse; the banshee,
Stirring something that kept changing color,
Looked willing to stir forever. Hermes,
One of the Nameless, Maeve and Libitina
Were playing cards; Hermes called
"Take a hand! Libitina's just playing
To be polite; she doesn't know the rules."
A ghost at 10:30 on a cold morning
Stands on the memory of
His left foot since he can no longer
Remember his right one clearly.
He thinks he was fond of it
But it's no use; he only manifestS
What he recalls precisely.
(It's fortunate he stared so much
In mirrors; he'd feel foolish with no nose.)
He hops off, stopping at corners,
Waiting for lights to turn green
Though what harm could cars do him now?
Since he can't recall why he's come back
He begs forgiveness from everyone he sees
Who's wearing a hat; he forgives the hatless
Unless they also wear gloves in which case
He whispers "Some things cannot be forgiven!"
One morning the train to work was rerouted
No Plandome. No Great Neck. No Auburnadale
Nor Woodside, where all must change.
Tus there was and Merv, Samarcand, and Balkh and Bukhara.
The conductors promised we would eventually
Reach Penn Station but I detrained at Nishapur
Famous for its pots, its grapes and its wines and
For Omar Khayyam who wrote about them.
No one here speaks English and it seems to be
Only a few hundred years after the Hejira
Say, 1150 by my reckoning. I get by;
People here are used to lost men; we have our own
Burial association, a flag and a rousing anthem.
Great Aunt Mabel, who was thin and
As sharp as four needles
Married soft, kind-hearted Azie
This was fortunate. Had she chosen Joe,
My grandfather -- a twice-bitten soul
Who reserved always the option
Of turning sideways and disappearing --
Great cities might now be dust and smoke.
Before she was a death spirit the banshee
Was a washerwoman so, as a professional,
She glanced at the hospital sheets on the bed
Where Max was taking his time dying. "Pfoo," she said
(In Galitzianer Yiddish, though Max had, over the years.
Picked up a fair amount of Gaelic) "a speckled hen
Would feel shame dying in such ill-washed sheets;
Wait you here -- I'll have a word with them in the laundry."
Superbly fat and self-assured Old Mercury
Rarely flies now though the tiny wings
On his hat and soft-sided boots still function.
His days are spent looking after his investments
And his nights drinking with thieves. As part
Of his plea-bargain he acts as a pro bono
Guide to Hell. For a fantastic fee, it's said,
He'll smuggle souls back to life, leaving them
At Charing Cross, with forged papers and car fare.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum
Is a glossy hat that has waited
For its true owner to return
Since 1910. It's half-promised
When this happens to plead
For the liberation of a pair
Of fawn-colored spats last worn
In 1896, at a society wedding.
