SHAVING AT FOURTEEN

 

The tiny wisps of hair sprouting upon

my face, looking more like shadow or smudge

of dirt, seemed so timid and tentative,

so uncertain in their purpose, that

I made the decision to take my brother's

straight razor, lather my face with warm water

and Barbasol, and began what I assumed

would be a clean and simple shave.

I guided the blade as steadily as I could

across a face which suddenly seemed

treacherous, not quite my own, the contours

of cheek bones and chin much sharper

than I had expected, small, unassuming landmines

hiding beneath every pore,

Adam's apple bobbing with each swallow.

One by one, the tiny flowers of blood

began to blossom through that cloud of white,

and I emerged, defeated, my face covered

in bits of tissue, as if flags of surrender.

Later, my brother looked at me and said simply,

"Don't be in such a hurry to shave.

You'll have the rest of your life for that."

It was a gentle way, I suppose, of saying to

slow down, enjoy what was left of childhood.

The world of adulthood would come

soon enough, its own battles and rewards

yet to be named, its map lines gradually

becoming visible, as clear and undeniable as

your face gazing back from the mirror.

DEMONS

 

In my mother's view of the world,

a world long since passed

into memory and family lore, nearly every

affliction of the body, psyche, or soul

could be ascribed to demons.

There was the demon of alcohol, persistent

and familiar as the setting sun, the demon of lust,

the demon that caused epilepsy, and

my stammering lisp as a child.

Demons were, it seemed, everywhere --

in constant need of being cast out, sometimes

forcefully, in the sanctum of the church,

and in our humble living rooms,

the preacher gone red-faced with intent,

his voice commanding, one tiny river

of sweat trickling down his cheek.

My mother said, more than once, that my father

must have been possessed by demons

which had caused him to gamble and drink,

to womanize, and abandon his children,

running like a fugitive from one end

of the country to the other, and back again.

She didn't mean it metaphorically.

She meant, I think, that no man could

possibly be purely evil without

some assistance, that there must be

an unseen hand holding the map,

guiding, relentlessly turning his back to the world,

and sweeping clean his tracks

until the man himself, however upright he

had begun, could no longer be seen.

CAESURA

 

Sibelius, too, near the end,

learned to love silence

more so than the notes which

he once constructed,

held one finger up to the air,

as though about to sign

his name -- but, of course,

his name was already there.

7000 PAIRS OF CHILDREN'S SHOES ON THE CAPITOL LAWN

 

Where have you run to so quickly, dear children,

so fast and so frantic that you have flown,

wingless, from your shoes -- the mud-streaked sneakers

and Mary Janes, the summer flip-flops and rainbow

jellies, Western boots and boxy black Oxfords,

reserved for church and family weddings.

You have left no tracks, dear children, your voices

so high that they drip from the tips of branches,

or are disguised among the shrieks of passing birds.

But it's your songs which we miss the most now,

how you narrated the most mundane of days,

called out the clouds by name, laughed

so hard that we worried over your very breathing.

We have placed them here upon the lawn,

rows and rows of them, awaiting your return.

We have left a path between each for you to walk.

You do not answer, even with your silence.

Children, it's getting darker with each passing minute.

How will you find your way after sunset

and nothing on your feet? What could we have

done to keep you away so long?

SECOND MEETING WITH MY FATHER

 

After burying my half-brother that afternoon, I asked the cab driver to drop me at my father's shop on Rice Street, two blocks up from the housing projects, where as a child I had so often imagined him, alternately captaining a ship through far-off lands, or swilling cheap wine under a bridge with the other derelicts. But here I was, surprising him, weighted and imbalanced with grief and a lifetime of questions which I could not bring myself to articulate, even now. He moved, at his ease, through rows of carpet and color samples, walls stacked with gallon drums of paint, back to his wood-paneled office. I noticed the pigmentation of his hands had receded, leaving patches the color of lard shining through, or the underside of a painting that has begun to chip. "Well..." he began, offhandedly, "you and I just kind of went our separate ways" -- as if this were an explanation, as if the child had somehow agreed and denied the father as well. He leaned back in his desk chair, hands clasped behind his head, elbows pointed in either direction, asked what I did for a living. I told him that I was a poet, which he failed to acknowledge one way or another. "I mean," he tried again, "What do you do to put money in your pocket?" I shrugged, stammered out one dead-end job or another. It was hard to imagine this most plain-spoken of men ever sweeping my mother off of her feet, however briefly. But wounded people have a way of finding each other, and are privy to a language of their own. It was, in part, why I was here, a product of that wound. This, then, was the earthly kingdom he had constructed, and had chosen again and again. It was, I suppose, a life that he could understand, one of facts and figures, the tangible and the easily stated. I left him to it.

BAPTISM

 

The preacher pinches my nostrils between

thumb and forefinger, pushes me

backward, hard, into the chlorine sting

of the pool, its deep, still water immediately

closing in around me like a second flesh,

heavy and resolute. Once, then again,

I go under, the former self of my childhood

swimming away, an embryo in reverse.

The age of reason, against every obstacle,

has found me. I am old enough now,

my mother reminds me, to be held accountable,

old enough to suffer those unrelenting

flames through eternity, for lack of belief,

unintended blasphemy, or simple understanding,

Far overhead, the sun blazes on, unblinking,

the world surrounding it seemingly

turned upside down, wheeling, tumbling,

while here below, sudden slashes

of light pierce my uncertain periphery.

My instinct is to reach for it, to kick, flail,

break away; my instinct is to save

myself, to simply not drown -- as I feel I am --

whether by water, wine, or blood of lamb.

Then, as if it were unexpected, I am

pulled back into the world, sputtering, gasping,

the welcome shock of oxygen like pinpricks

to the lungs, as if I had been running for miles,

my first steps back on land uncertain.

This world is not my home, they are singing,

so happy to only be passing through.

But I don't know what could be better than

this -- the earth that accepts us again

and again, sinners to the last,

the one on which we write our songs, the one

that sings them back to us in return.

FIRST APARTMENT

 

When I think of being seventeen, I think

of that dingy one-room apartment above

the nameless laundromat, its dirty glass clouded

with steam, potato-sweat stench and clutter

of that windowless apartment, rickety wooden stairs

leaning wearily against the red brick outside,

ready to collapse, shifting even without the weight of steps.

I remember the anonymous maps of water-stained

walls, so thin that I could hear my neighbors

coughing and brushing their teeth, playing the same

sad songs over and over, could feel the vibrations

of the industrial washers and driers below, like invisible

lovers nearing climax, never quite arriving.

When I think of being seventeen, I think

of walking to school in the dim morning, the afternoon

bus ride to work, bleary-eyed, the endless hours

given over to others in the name of survival,

collapsing at night onto a musty mattress

on the floor; I remember the kindness and mercy

of young women who passed through,

bringing canned soup and the comfort of touch, so new

and foreign, the small curtains of their mysterious

rooms opening just enough to let in the light,

remember the Dutch Bar across the street,

the line of gleaming Harleys outside, where someone

seemed to get stabbed every other week,

and the elderly deaf mute down the hall signaling

to no one in particular, a pinched sound like

a distant bird rising from the well of her throat,

a word of caution, perhaps, or insight that

I could not understand, then or now.