Paul
set the bags down, told how they had split
the deer apart, the ease of peeling it
simpler than skinning a fruit, how the buck
lay on the worktable, how they sawed
an anklebone off, the smell not rank.
The sun slipped into night.
Where
are you I wondered as I grubbed
through cupboards for noodles at least.
Then came venison new with blood,
stray hair from the animal's fur.
Excited, we cooked the meat.
Later,
I dreamt against your human chest,
you cloaked me in your large arms, then
went for me the way you squander food sometimes.
By then, I was eating limbs in my sleep,
somewhere
in the snow alone, survivor of a downed plane,
picking at the freshly dead. Whistles
of a far off flute -- legs, gristle, juice.
I cracked an elbow against a rock, awoke.
Throughout the night, we consumed and consumed.
There
was no music,
no one played the cimbalom
.Ladies dressed in largesized brassieres cheered
Yablo as he poured himself into a glass.
In formation, ducklings waddled around him,
belching.
An odor of soup filled the tent.
Trained
geese crooned to Yablo in Hungarian,
rugsellers told tales to noblemen,
lions turned puny.
A stench hung over all Lublin.
There were those who complained.
A
bear walked across the stage in tears.
Flowers cracked open the floorboards,
grew before the crowd.
Fragrant roses, painted daisies, yellow iris.
Penguins marched out, placed ties around
the necks of plants.
Roseface, Daisyface, Irisface.
Against the upper reaches of the tent, parrots
fluttered 'til their feathers dropped.
Outdoors,
from slagheaps, walls were built.
A great deal of crockery broke.
A fleshy woman sold mushrooms on the street.
Another, stray plums.
They
placed tablecloths beneath their wares,
then newspaper, then the bowls of measly pears.
Men waited for word from anywhere.
When
a small
woman, such as
me, catches a large
fish, such as a 20
lb. salmon,
it is luck.
I
am short, it bit, it
was luck, the fish was
big. I fought, it
fought, I felt big, I
drove quick
to Poulsbo to
have
it smoked.
I have thought of good
fortune and luck, good
fortune and skill, and skill
and luck, but
luck
it was and lucky too,
because I am short,
it was big,
we fought and now
,it is smoked.
Now
that I've written
Aspects of Luck, it's
next to the picture of me and
the fish, the question comes up of
which is worth more - god knows
the answer to that.
Still
she has her silent say.
I
swam nude in a creek with my mother once,
we kept a distance.
Then she said how nice I looked. Sun
on
her dark hair, wet curls on her neck,
she painted cadmium red canvases. My flesh
cushions
my bones, when will we get over
her drawnout death? That creek has filled
with
thawed snow, her lilies are beginning
to bloom, the sky now is begging for notice.
| THIS CAN HAPPEN
WHEN YOU'RE MARRIED |
You
find blue sheets the color of sky with
the feel of summer, they smell like clothes
drying on the line when you were small.
They feel unusual on your skin; you and
your
husband sleep on them.
You
find thick white towels that absorb
water. When you come from the bath, you are
cold for a moment, you think of snow for a
moment,
you wrap yourself in a towel, dry off the water.
Now,
you unpack your silver, after years, polish it,
set it in red quilted drawers your mother
lined for you when you were young.
You
and your husband are in bed. The windows
are open.
There is a smell from the lawn. It's dark
and late. You
and your husband are in the sheets. He is
like a horse.
You are like grass he is grazing, you are his
field. Or
he's a cow in a barn, licking his calf.
It's raining out.
He
gets up, walks to the other room. You
listen
for his step, his breath. It is late.
For moments
before you sleep, you hear him singing.
He
comes to bed. He touches your face.
He touches
your chin and lips. Later, he tells you
this. He puts
his head on your breast. You are dreaming
of Rousseau
now, paintings of girls and deserts and lions.
Six
a. m. at Sheffield Arms,
the fishermen's pub by the carpark,
our skipper Larry Ryan
orders a grease-out -
beans, eggs, and a slab of bacon that looks like
ham.
"Eat,"
says Larry"
We'll be out for 8 or 10 hours."
The waves are green in the Channel, a drizzle.
On shore are white humps of chalk.
Seven Sisters, the hills are called,
to the left, that cliff is Beachy Head. And
behind, the town of Battle where the Battle of
Hastings was fought.
Larry
Ryan's radio is playing Verdi's Requiem.
A fisherman puts live bait on his line,
"live bite," he calls it. On comes Ode
to Joy.
The fishermen are discussing
this particular rendition,
hauling in sea bass,
I am concentrating on my line.
"Virginia Woolf's house is right off
Lewes-Newhaven Road" someone says,
baits his hook, dirty jokes over the shortwave
mix with Berlioz.
We
are fishing above torpedoed wrecks,
200 boats sunk by Germans in a ten mile radius.
Now they're talking about Dunkirk.
I
did not catch a fish.
"Do
the wrecks have names?" I ask.
"Yes" - Larry's reply.
"What do you call them?"
"Nothing - no-one's business where I fish.
Hold this big bass up, I'll take your picture.
You're not a real fisherman until you lie."
|
