–

Packing the Books

Another chapter. Eleven years of New York
madness is finished, and we’re moving away.
I cull out all the books I’ve read and forgotten,
asking myself what a man truly needs at forty five.
I’ve forgotten what little I understood
of Hegel and Locke, whole kingdoms
of plants, the meanings of quarks,
the Five Good Roman Emperors,
math, the novels of Proust,
and a rolling thunder of conjugations
in four different languages, even my own.
I save the poetry for last. Rows of aging
paperbacks with cracked spines,
yellowing pages. I look at the margins,
the furious comments, words underscored
two, three times, exclamation points … Oh what
was I trying to love?

In the middle of life, I see myself still waiting
outside a library deep in the woods.
I stare through the window: tier after tier
of books bound in white leather, and I understand
now that the books are empty, nothing
but soft, blank pages. I press my hands
to the cold glass. This is my heart,
this silent building in the dark fir trees,
and the lights are left burning all night long.

–

October Layoffs

I

Working in a troubled office, you develop
a fine ear for door slams, like the managerial
“Now see here!” — righteous and swift.
But you also distinguish the other kind,
still forceful but touched with a miserable hint
of reluctance that says, “I truly hate
to do this, but I’m your boss.”

II

Sitting at my desk, heart pounding,
almost in tears, I listen to our supervisor
talking rapidly next door. I put my ear to the wall,
and I hear Pat say, “Well, I figured …”

III

Full moon, October. I lie awake
half dreaming, drifting, and I see myself
making the rounds at the office, saying
goodbye, hugging each person in turn.
“You’ve done a good job. Be proud.”
Then immediately another image:
I’m sitting tailor fashion on my desk,
literally in burlap and ashes, head lowered,
my collar open, cool air on my neck.
A broad ax rises. I lower my head some more,
and the ax slices easily through my neck.
I feel my head tip forward
and fall, blood washing my chest,
soaking my shirt.

Startled, I lie in the dark. I’ve seen,
I think, what I needed to see:
that I’ll never work again for anyone else,
not with my heart, not with faith,
and I close my eyes, falling asleep
and sleep like the dead until morning.

–

The Wild Deer at Armonk

On the corporate hilltops outside New York
we organize and soar.

Outside on the lawn, wild deer press
cautiously through the patchwork of late
snow, quiet as the moon,
to nibble at the thin, expensive saplings
we traded for the woods.

Ghosts rise up out of our bodies
like laundry, sway and look around, still
hungry for the joy of finishing.

The deer approach dark windows, as lost
in the starving spring
as we would be without them.
They would help us provide. They would
feed from our hand if we let them.

–

Business Class

The flight attendants maneuver their way
down the darkened aisle, bending and smiling,
checking our condition. After three good
bourbons, I glance around. I’m surrounded
by people in business suits who look
like me, the older ones reading,
the younger ones pointing out bonus
rewards in their sales catalogues.
“Have a nice day,” the recorded message
at the airport urges, in all sincerity.
We’ve tried, in all sincerity.
We’ve tried to make money, for ourselves
and our homes and expensive families.
We’re doing the best we can, living
out of briefcases filled with Maalox
and PERT charts, rental car tickets,
stock quotes, cigarettes and gum.
On the seat beside me, a senior man
is already asleep, a finance review
resting on his stomach, his mouth half open.
Each year I tell myself that I’m leaving
in the next few years. A writer can’t
live like this, can’t think, and yet
if I had the perfect leisure to think,
with endless mornings and a massive desk
overlooking the ocean, perhaps I would think
of nothing at all, or a little
less each year. No. I have my heavy
bills to pay, like every other poet
on this plane. So tell me this isn’t
a life or a living. Tell me that it all
doesn’t count.

–

Night Song

My son cries and I stumble
over to pick him up
and he hangs on my neck,
dependent, and love
twists deep inside me,
the good knife
working at the pointless
tangle of old roots and fear,
the baffled heart prized
open by small
and normal degrees …
How easily
we waste our lives,
lavishly, with so little
thought, and then
such tiny
socks.

–

My Wife Believes in Reincarnation

I’ve never thought about money so much
since moving to New York. Brooding in silence,
I watch how the Chinese goldfish follow
their lucky noses back and forth. We need
to build up equity. Each month, half our income
disappears for rent, but with interest rates
and nothing in the bank, what can we do?
My wife reads a book on “spiritual midwifery,”
newborns blinking at the camera, wrinkled, astonished.
The goldfish stare back, mild and brainless,
happy enough in their temperate world.

In the crowded park on summer afternoons, we admire
the children of others: toddlers squatting in the sand
and ignoring the giant, assuming faces above them.
Everything we’ve tried to create together
has failed, except our life together.
Our arms are empty. We must have faith.

My wife believes in reincarnation. In the nature shows
on television, galaxies of bright spores float
through darkness. I kiss her shoulders.
“That’s how I think of our souls,” she tells me.
“Millions ascending, life after life.”
I turn off the set. She adds, “This child
is simply waiting for its own sweet time.”

After love, I leave her sleeping and take
my shower, washing off her lotions and oils,
the fragrances, our sweat. I towel myself dry, feeling
the warm air on my body from the open window.
Ferns tremble in the breeze moving
through the dark apartment. Someone calls
from the street. Tiny souls, the millions streaming
lavishly through space, through time,
simple and perfect, like snow.

Waiting for Money

We sleep late through the morning and make
love quietly in the middle of the day.
We’re waiting for the telephone to ring.
Someone somewhere in California is reading
our script. They’ll let us know next week, they say.
My wife says it’s like waiting for your dream
boat to ask you to the prom.

We’re living mainly on credit cards these days.
Each week, I feel the easy trigger
tighten as I sign for cash. We’re optimistic.
In New York, the air is filled with impossible money.
For the first time in years, we have all day
to be with each other. We make a date
for the Museum of Natural History
on Wednesday nights when it’s almost empty.
We study the natural defenses of the sponge,
learn where the dinosaurs went wrong, carefully follow
the moody spells of recorded shamans.

When we get home, the answering machine
sits silent. We’ll watch the late show
like insomniacs, or talk a bit, and I’ll fall asleep
remembering the dark museum, the wolves
racing through the moonlit forest, racing
all night through the deep, blue snow.