To the maid Mary Rocke he left
Stocks, some cash, an annuity
All his shirts, two nightgowns,
His lace ruffs, a snuffbox
With his dear wife's picture on it
And his gold dumb repeater watch.
(A dumb repeater keeps time
Just as well as those that speak;
It simply doesn't brag about it.)
I am a note in the middle --
I think I'm in the middle --
Of a very long notebook. The author
Wrote me down meaning, I'm sure,
To return and work me into a poem
But he never has. I blame his habit
Of writing in no order so page 17
May be written after page 206. Also,
He often writes in the dark. I am,
I'd say, quite a good idea. If you know
The author tell him he could do worse
Than look again at page 551
Of Notebook 46B, about halfway down.
When she's six blocks away
The windows begin to shudder in their frames.
When she's five blocks away
Every towel in the linen closet refolds itself.
When she's four blocks off
The credit cards in your wallet cancel themselves.
Three blocks? Your inherited silverware
Now has strangers' initials deep-etched in.
Two blocks; there's no time to find a new reflection;
You must comb your hair and shave without one.
When she's one block away, all the doors in your house
Unlock, then lock and then unlock themselves again.
Anne Damer, sculptor, stands on the roof
Of Richard Cosway's house, watching
The Opera House burn; her left arm
Rests on a concrete sphere, gilded
To lool like the Sun; her right hand touches
A statue of Minerva which will speak
If it's in the mood and finds you attractive.
A spark flying across Suffolk Street
Lands in her hand leaving a scar
In the shape of bird in flight. Years later,
Dying, she'll write a will directing
She be buried with a mallet, the bones
Of her favorite dog, an apron
And a selection of new-sharpened chisels.
Most of the stray shadows in this town --
Never claimed or lost or on the run from enemies --
Drift in time to the scrap yard where the disjoindered pieces
Of the Third Avenue El's shadow were hauled in 1956
Along with the bent and battered shadows of conductors,
Engineers, passengers, token sellers and pigeons.
When funds are available, everything
Will be soldered back together and the men and birds
Will board, no matter where it's going, the first train to rumble in.
My Aunt Sadie, of course, was the one
Who remembered that Max, now dying,
Had somewhere acquired a banshee
Who'd have to be gotten to the hospital.
Max always had to be different; the Feingolds,
The Rappaports, the Zimmers -- they all had proper dybbuks
And three blocks over from Snediker Avenue
A golem, living over a shoe store, could be hired by the day.
If a druj nasu -- an Afghanistani corpse fiend --
Had come to Max he'd have shrugged and hired her
"How could I not? She was down on her luck
And such a long way from home."
In the museum there is a flint knife named
Mictlantecuhtli who rules the underworld
And one named Tlaloc who tells the rain
It is time to fall and a third whose name
Has been lost; some think it's never had one.
If your soul was unwillingly liberated
By Mictlantecuhtli you might have found
An administrative position among the dead.
Tlaloc-taken souls run errands on Earth
During the winter rains. Souls freed
By the third and sharpest flint knife must wait
For the day it finds its name.
One thing about being the son of a tailor is this:
When Death comes by he may wrap
What was you in a blanket your father
Made from scraps and remnants that looked
Like no other blanket in the world.
If Mount Fuji said
"I am tired
Of being here;
I want to be there"
Who would dare say no?
(Well, possibly
A cat. Cats
Are not afraid of mountains.)
Death expects you to type his name
In bold caps like this: DEATH.
If there's a loose button on his shirt
DEATH expects you to repair it.
When you overhear his name DEATH
Wants you to whip your head around
And strain to hear what's being said of him.
DEATH will not answer petitions beginning
"Yo, DEATH! How's it hanging?"
I have no picture of you, just one you took
Of a tall house, its windows lit against the night.
I was there; you borrowed my camera to take it
(In those days I always had a camera with me
And three or four extra rolls of film in little jars
Tied to the camera-strap).
