Through a crack in the frame the image of my father
Makes his way out of the picture. He's in
No hurry to make his escape; he knew that someday
There'd be just such a crack. He means
To check on folks in other pictures, perhaps
Seeing how his folks are doing in that photo
Taken at a seder in 1947 but pauses,
Waiting for my mother's image to come with him.
The North Wind has been taking subtlety lessons
From the old women who practice tai chi
Behind the Federal Courthouse on Centre Street.
After holding himself infinitely still He
Gently flicks the uttermost end of one thin branch.
Hesychia, silence's muse, can be found
Just where she's been since 1928, living
With her pet, a rust-colored spider
In a small room in Elmira, New York.
The rest of the house has been gone
For many years so visitors must first climb
The memory of a staircase, avoiding
The middle of third one from the top
Which always squeaked.
I bought the demon queller
When I was ten because
I had a dollar and its orangeness
Appealed to me. It was meant
To quell Japanese demons
But mischance had brought it
To a Brooklyn giftshop.
American demons, thinking it's
One of their own, imitate
It's lidless glare and leave it gifts.
Mostly resigned, it sometimes dreams
A Japanese demon will turn up --,
Perhaps trying to sell me something --
And find itself quelled.
It wasn't the weaving
She'd miss so much
As the unweaving
The unpatterning.
Long night hours
The light of a candle
Held by a maid
(Later hung
Her pale legs kicking)
If the sly king
Had drowned at sea
She'd have learned
To unspin wool
Unshear sheep
Unstring minutes
Hoping another Penelope
Might string them again
String them better.
There used to be
A fish market here
But they packed it up
Ghosts and all and
Moved it to the Bronx.
Now, very early
Muses buy and sell
Ideas for poems
My usual muse
(Quite old but sly)
Often leaves with
A small wrapped idea
And two or three others
Which somehow
Found themselves
In her purse's
Deepest depths.
On the long line for admission
To Hell stands a child. It's hard
To imagine why she's there
But there she is, fidgeting,
Holding the memory of a toy
That was blown up with her
One damned soul makes faces
To amuse her. Another starts
A long story about an elephant
And a lizard and a flying boat.
It's a very long line and, really,
What else have we to do?
Some saints spend so long in the field that at last
They're worn down, almost featureless, like spoons
With unreadable monograms and twisting handles
Which might be anything -- writhing Cupids, sleepy mermaids,
Apostles, even. Their attributes are lost or mere blobs,
Their miracles pointless, giving a duck, say, the power
To heal shattered bones and twisted hearts
Or making puddles rain themselves back into the sky.
During the War my mother's cousin Simon
Was a solider and wrote brave letters
Sometimes and funny ones other times
He'd type an original and six carbons
Sending my mother carbon four.
When he was in college he lived
In my grandparents' house and Joe
My grandfather gave him a dime
Every morning for carfare. Most mornings
Si walked so he could spend the dime
On cigarettes and coffee. He came home
With a whole heart but three years later
It broke and then his spirit went flat
And he smoked cheap tobacco in a pipe.
When I found his war letters I wondered
What had happened to make him
Scared of everything. My mother thought
It was a girl named Gretchen or perhaps
Just bad luck of which Simon always had
Enough and more than enough.
My father, I ask you to look out for
A small girl, recently dead. No kin
Of ours but, out of your kindness,
Help her; she'll be so confused
That grownups took the trouble
To kill a five year old.
While you lived you could never
Ignore a child's distress; even Death,
I think, couldn't change that in you.
A young child, a girl, dead,
Asks why I'm writing a poem
When I should be bringing her back.
Young children do not know
That anything's impossible. There will
Be ducks on the pond that she
Won't ever see. The honking geese
Won't startle or amuse her; won't
Make her clutch small hands together
And say Oh! No cricket will bring her
Good fortune; no grandchild
Ask her why cats don't have kings.
Kooser, if you look
At that poem of yours
You'll find your fan
Missing. I have it because
My poem needed it.
If you want, come by
And bring some spoons
(The ones the ghosts stole
From your aunt will do.)
The electric fan has ingrained dust
On its blades. It sometimes wakes itself
On a cold winter day and whirrs officiously.
Older even than the broiler I took to school
It has outlived so many appliances
Even the Grundig radio that, on clear nights,
Brought Canada and Wheeling, West Virginia
To suburban New York. If the old fan thinks
I need cooling when it's 14 degrees
Who on earth am I to say it's not right?
| Sun, Jan 25, 2:53 PM (3 days ago) | |||
| ||||
In the middle of a very heavy
Snowstorm there is a knock on the
Door. A god -- a small one --
Stands there, brushing off snow, and
Says "A few of us, for no good
Reason -- we gods need none
For what we do -- have been
Slowly changing your fate. You've heard
That even gods can't alter fate?
We say this because it's hard and
We're most of us lazy. Still, we have
Built you something interesting which
Begins as soon as you leave your
House with me. C'mon! I've shoveled
Your walk and hotwired your car."
In those hard times God,
Not having two nickels
To rub together, took a job
With my Grandfather Max.
He did good work but
Nothing extraordinary, saving
Miracles for His off hours.
When things got better
He quit and resumed
Being God full-time.
The angels changing shifts use ladders
To go between Earth and Heaven. You'd think
They'd fly or at least use escalators but no;
They climb up and down ladders. Worse,
There are no ladders just for going up and
None for just going down so they must
Push past each other. When an angel going off-shift
Has news for his replacement, everyone on their ladder
Waits, commending themselves on how patiently they're waiting.
After the execution of the beautiful Yang Guifei
The emperor's men, riding slowly, return to the palace.
One courtier pulls a wooden flute from his sleeve
And then puts it back. Silence is the music
Sent to accompany her on her way.
Frances Pray graduated in 1921
Nothing more is known of her
In fact, even this is not known of her
But was invented just now because
Her name appears in the text and
The editor likes footnotes. Really,
What sort of person likes footnotes?
The sort who pays research assistants
Scandalously little.
Joe, said God, as a fellow watchmaker
Why do you think this world of mine
Has never run quite right? I have,
Said Joe, a few ideas about that;
Make it 1925 and leave the world
In my father's shop; we'll take a look.
The god scheduled to descend from the heavens
Is ill. They pluck you from the audience and
Spend an hour or so deifying you.
Throwing a gaudy cloak across your shoulders
They wish you luck and thrust you in the machine.
It's only when you emerge on stage that you realize
You don't know the play. No matter. You cancel all debts
Reveal that everyone is a long lost someone or other
And marry to each other whoever looks unmarried.
Some of them look startled or upset but no matter;
We gods are known to be tricksy, untrusty folk.
I warned you or at least
I meant to and now
The bland little soul you tucked
Into a matchbox has been
Carried off by someone
Who just wanted a match
But now has your soul
In his pocket screaming
In its tiny voice in a language
He doesn't understand.
