ghosts
Stewart and I made love, and the fog climbed into bed with us
casting white shadows on pale figures.
I can read your thoughts, Stewart:
too many times have you put me in daisy gardens,
too many times have I seen a blur of myself
trumpeting through the woods.
Too many times have you pictured me as I was.
In my mind, though,
I am always near the frozen lake
under a yellow light
and in that stillness, I search for you beneath the ice.
I am always birthing something.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
martha in europe
Martha in Europe
I.
That summer, I travelled alone,
like we all must do when we grow old.
I cut a perfect diagonal line across Europe
for once, all things were exact.
I left my home without any promise of return.
I made ghosts of my furniature, of photographs,
of the moose head mounted on the wall.
Of course, I asked nothing of the mirror anymore
I already knew it's answer.
II.
In Germany, I wandered with a pocket of coins
(out of all of these countries, it was most like home.)
I passed by his old apartment, wherein I once came apart
stripped and shaved.
I shed enough blood to keep his heart alive for twenty minutes,
drunk on his roommate's stolen beer.
Maybe I wanted to be captured. I was in a dark womb, so
maybe I craved the adreniline rush in that moment before death.
When you taste the wet paper of cabbages and bruised sausages
and you see the shadows over the faces of everyone you've known.
I did not enter that room, charm the new tenant,
some leggy fraulein to see it one more time
I was looking for something more unexpected.
III.
England should have stoned me for my sins
but I lay alone in the heath, thinking of the hill where
I had once made love constantly for an entire month in autumn
with a boy who gave me nothing but sweetness and black tea
which I, of course, clouded with milk.
In a red birdcage of a phone booth, I dialed
he answered and his glasses lay on the coffee table.
We did not undress. We did not wish to see what we had become.
"Martha, my dear. What happened to us?"
was what the phantom whispered.
I did not reply, I just tasted his withered lips
and watched the rabbits dance in his garden
and listened to his record player skip.
In the state I was in, I couldn't say:
"Oh, my gentleman, I could have you
but I do not want you."
IV.
I put on my black dress and headed south
for Greece, maybe Sicily
if time would allow. I never felt
in those days when I wore the red bathing cap
that I ever had enough time.
My skin, still too pale for that region
made them stare, that, at least,
had not changed.
What I was looking for was unattainable. I knew that.
Through new moon sunglasses, I watched
drunk on torsos and stomachs, I sunk
into the Mediterranean, careful not to let them study
my legs, think as olive trees with purple rivers
surfacing like cuneiform.
At sunset, when they had gone to kiss their sweethearts,
the village girls (dumb as kittens)
or play soccer in the foothills
I pressed my feet into their footprints
following their path at a slow pace.
I got a busboy drunk on the patio of my hotel room,
but I didn't dare to touch his face
(not even when he lolled his curly head onto my shoulder
and called me something that I knew had to mean "grandmother".)
I just looked to the stars and wept.
V.
Last of all, the Paris cemetery.
I'd gotten lost, but I had an old map and sturdy leather shoes.
I'd purchased nothing in that city to remember it by:
just train tickets
and a citron presse to stir
as if I needed to pass the time.
A transvestite in Montmartre read my palm
smacking her lips, she told me in broken English
that I had many more years to live.
I paid her and thanked her
but I did not believe her.
Another hotel, my last night on earth.
I could not sleep with the lights clamoring outside my window
like gawking angels waiting to watch me die.
The phone did not ring. God did not call to warn me
or offer me some last chance.
I crushed my cigarette,
and said good-night.
I.
That summer, I travelled alone,
like we all must do when we grow old.
I cut a perfect diagonal line across Europe
for once, all things were exact.
I left my home without any promise of return.
I made ghosts of my furniature, of photographs,
of the moose head mounted on the wall.
Of course, I asked nothing of the mirror anymore
I already knew it's answer.
II.
In Germany, I wandered with a pocket of coins
(out of all of these countries, it was most like home.)
I passed by his old apartment, wherein I once came apart
stripped and shaved.
I shed enough blood to keep his heart alive for twenty minutes,
drunk on his roommate's stolen beer.
Maybe I wanted to be captured. I was in a dark womb, so
maybe I craved the adreniline rush in that moment before death.
When you taste the wet paper of cabbages and bruised sausages
and you see the shadows over the faces of everyone you've known.
I did not enter that room, charm the new tenant,
some leggy fraulein to see it one more time
I was looking for something more unexpected.
III.
England should have stoned me for my sins
but I lay alone in the heath, thinking of the hill where
I had once made love constantly for an entire month in autumn
with a boy who gave me nothing but sweetness and black tea
which I, of course, clouded with milk.
In a red birdcage of a phone booth, I dialed
he answered and his glasses lay on the coffee table.
We did not undress. We did not wish to see what we had become.
"Martha, my dear. What happened to us?"
was what the phantom whispered.
I did not reply, I just tasted his withered lips
and watched the rabbits dance in his garden
and listened to his record player skip.
In the state I was in, I couldn't say:
"Oh, my gentleman, I could have you
but I do not want you."
IV.
I put on my black dress and headed south
for Greece, maybe Sicily
if time would allow. I never felt
in those days when I wore the red bathing cap
that I ever had enough time.
My skin, still too pale for that region
made them stare, that, at least,
had not changed.
What I was looking for was unattainable. I knew that.
Through new moon sunglasses, I watched
drunk on torsos and stomachs, I sunk
into the Mediterranean, careful not to let them study
my legs, think as olive trees with purple rivers
surfacing like cuneiform.
At sunset, when they had gone to kiss their sweethearts,
the village girls (dumb as kittens)
or play soccer in the foothills
I pressed my feet into their footprints
following their path at a slow pace.
I got a busboy drunk on the patio of my hotel room,
but I didn't dare to touch his face
(not even when he lolled his curly head onto my shoulder
and called me something that I knew had to mean "grandmother".)
I just looked to the stars and wept.
V.
Last of all, the Paris cemetery.
I'd gotten lost, but I had an old map and sturdy leather shoes.
I'd purchased nothing in that city to remember it by:
just train tickets
and a citron presse to stir
as if I needed to pass the time.
A transvestite in Montmartre read my palm
smacking her lips, she told me in broken English
that I had many more years to live.
I paid her and thanked her
but I did not believe her.
Another hotel, my last night on earth.
I could not sleep with the lights clamoring outside my window
like gawking angels waiting to watch me die.
The phone did not ring. God did not call to warn me
or offer me some last chance.
I crushed my cigarette,
and said good-night.
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