MARTHA'S VINEYARD, 1980
It was the fall before John Lennon was killed.
Each night my father
sat in the hazy gray kitchen, lost
in the checkered tablecloth, the record
spinning, John's voice
weaving through the waves
of the ocean. He could float -
the monster - he would
stay with us, hovered
near the smoke alarm, curled
like a baby under the stove.
He was red. Like the red
cliffs, sand, red seagull
eye, moon, reefs, rocking.
My father said he was born
in our house, and would die there.
What did my mother think
of him, sleeping in our attic
on his great red stomach? I saw her
down the curved dirt path
behind a counter
frowning as she held out
chunk after chunk of bread.
How well she knew how hard it was
to wait, the bread growing
stale in her fingers, her apron
spotted with oil, one thread
loose, stuck like a tick to her thigh.
Did she sleep on the ocean bed, still
in her apron? I don't remember my parents
touching. Did she see the monster?
Did he love her? I never remembered
falling asleep in my father's arms. I never saw him
carefully holding my body
together, rocking me against his soft blue shirt, the moan
of John singing I wanted you so bad, the waves parting
as my mother got closer.
FRESH CUT
I owned the baby, the way I owned the lawn.
Mornings I'd take her there,
wrapped in her many blankets,
unwrap her, rock her
in its emerald fissures.
She was a wounded thing,
like fresh cut grass -
wildflowers
when I crushed them
with my dense summer body.
What do you make of this love?
I wanted to bury her
in the cool dirt
under the weeping willow.
His branches, his mercy.
Afternoons, when the lawn
began to burn
I'd roll to her; we'd lie
in deepest shade
among moss and mushrooms
alone with him.
FOURTEEN IN HIS ATTIC
I can picture him then, my husband
examining me, hands deep inside,
digging, my body a puzzle
of the unexplored world. He did it
over and over, until he
cracked me, my code, my too hot
to touch, my body brimming, my -
he wouldn't stop. Then
it poured, twisted
out of me: coral, tree stumps,
powdered silk of broken
stars - there might have been
more - and I
just lay there, dumb,
as though all he'd discovered,
uncovered, touched and touched
meant nothing, was a memory
I didn't remember - he
couldn't stop, what did I expect
of him, hardly a man, hungry -
ENDYMION
You, boy in the faded green t-shirt
slouching in the lawn chair
outside the laundromat?
Wake up. It's me.
Remember? It was summer,
night, like now, but you
took me, my hand, led me
from your beat-up Honda,
clutched, dragged me
through gravel, sand, moved me
to hot dusk. I remember you
turned me in the dark toward
something like water,
streaks of silver, pulled, streamed me,
I was water. I often ask
how could I be water
but it was like that then.
You remember. You dissolved
into me. I drowned. Here,
in these plastic yellow bags
I offer you oranges. How else
can I repay you? They are cold.
They will cool you.
I have nothing else to offer.
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