All of Us (6 page)

We press our lips to the enameled rim of the cups

and know this grease that floats

over the coffee will one day stop our hearts.

Eyes and fingers drop onto silverware

that is not silverware. Outside the window, waves

beat against the chipped walls of the old city.

Your hands rise from the rough tablecloth

as if to prophesy. Your lips
tremble…

I want to say to hell with the future.

Our future lies deep in the afternoon.

It is a narrow street with a cart and driver,

a driver who looks at us and hesitates,

then shakes his head. Meanwhile,

I coolly crack the egg of a fine Leghorn chicken.

Your eyes film. You turn from me and look across

the rooftops at the sea. Even the flies are still.

I crack the other egg.

Surely we have diminished one another.

If I call stones blue it is because

blue is the precise word, believe me.

—
FLAUBERT

You are writing a love scene

between Emma Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger,

but love has nothing to do with it.

You are writing about sexual desire,

that longing of one person to possess another

whose ultimate aim is penetration.

Love has nothing to do with it.

You write and write that scene

until you arouse yourself,

masturbate into a handkerchief.

Still, you don’t get up from the desk

for hours. You go on writing that scene,

writing about hunger, blind energy —

the very nature of sex —

a fiery leaning into consequence

and eventually, utter ruin

if unbridled. And sex,

what is sex if it is not unbridled?

You walk on the strand that night

with your magpie friend, Ed Goncourt.

You tell him when you write

love scenes these days you can jackoff

without leaving your desk.

“Love has nothing to do with it,” you say.

You enjoy a cigar and a clear view of Jersey.

The tide is going out across the shingle,

and nothing on earth can stop it.

The smooth stones you pick up and examine

under the moon’s light have been made blue

from the sea. Next morning when you pull them

from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.

—
for my wife

This afternoon the Mississippi —

high, roily under a broiling sun,

or low, rippling under starlight,

set with deadly snags come out to fish

for steamboats —

the Mississippi this afternoon

has never seemed so far away.

Plantations pass in the darkness;

there’s Jones’s landing appearing out

of nowhere, out of pine trees,

and here at 12-Mile Point, Gray’s

overseer reaches out of fog and receives

a packet of letters, souvenirs and such

from New Orleans.

Bixby, that pilot you loved,

fumes and burns:

D——nation, boy! he storms at you time and again.

Vicksburg, Memphis, St Looey, Cincinnati,

the paddleblades flash and rush, rush

upriver, soughing and churning

the dark water.

Mark Twain you’re all eyes and ears,

you’re taking all this down to tell later,

everything,

even how you got your name,

quarter twain, mark twain,

something every schoolboy knew

save one.

I hang my legs further over the banister

and lean back in shade,

holding to the book like a wheel,

sweating, fooling my life away,

as some children haggle,

then fiercely slap each other

in the field below.

On the banks of the

    river they call Indus today

we observe a kind of

bean

    much like the Egyptian bean

    also

crocodiles are reported

upstream & hillsides grown over

    with myrrh & ivy

               He believes

we have located the headwaters

of the River Nile

    we offer

sacrifice

hold games

    for the occasion

There is much rejoicing &

               the men think

    we shall turn back

These elephants their

emissaries offer

    are giant

terrifying beasts yet

    with a grin he yesterday

ran up a ladder onto

          the very top of one

    beast

The men

               cheered him & he

waved & they cheered him

    again

He pointed across the river

    & the men grew silent

The builders

busy themselves with great rafts

    at the water’s edge

         on the morrow

we again set our faces

    to the East

Tonight

               wind    birds

fill the air

    the clacking of their bills

like iron on iron

The wind

               is steady is fragrant

    with jasmine

trail of the country behind us

The wind moves

               through the camp

stirs the tents of

the Hetaeri

    touches each

of the sleeping soldiers

Euoi! Euoi!

    men cry out

in their sleep & the horses

               prick their ears & stand

    shivering

In a few hours

they all shall wake

    with the sun

shall follow the wind

               even further

I lean over the balcony of the minaret.

My head swims.

A few steps away the man who intends

to betray me begins by pointing out

key sights —

market church prison whorehouse.

Killed, he says.

Words lost in the wind but

drawing a finger across his throat

so I will get it.

He grins.

The key words fly out —

Turks Greeks Arabs Jews

trade worship love murder

a beautiful woman.

He grins again at such foolishness.

He knows I am watching him.

Still he whistles confidently

as we start down the steps

bumping against each other going down

commingling breath and bodies in the narrow spiralling dark.

Downstairs, his friends are waiting

with a car. We all of us light cigarettes

and think what to do next.

Time, like the light in his dark eyes,

is running out as we climb in.

Not far from here someone

is calling my name.

I jump to the floor.

Still, this could be a trap.

Careful, careful.

I look under the covers for my knife.

But even as I curse God

for the delay, the door is thrown open

and a long-haired brat enters

carrying a dog.

What is it, child? (We are both

trembling.) What do you want?

But the tongue only hops and flutters

in her open mouth

as a single sound rises in her throat.

I move closer, kneel

and place my ear against the tiny lips.

When I stand up—the dog grins.

Listen, I don’t have time for games.

Here, I say, here—and I send her away

with a plum.

Rain hisses onto stones as old men and women

drive donkeys to cover.

We stand in rain, more foolish than donkeys,

and shout, walk up and down in rain and accuse.

When rain stops the old men and women

who have waited quietly in doorways, smoking,

lead their donkeys out once more and up the hill.

Behind, always behind, I climb through the narrow streets.

I roll my eyes. I clatter against stones.

I think of Balzac in his nightcap after

thirty hours at his writing desk,

mist rising from his face,

the gown clinging

to his hairy thighs as

he scratches himself, lingers

at the open window.

Outside, on the boulevards,

the plump white hands of the creditors

stroke moustaches and cravats,

young ladies dream of Chateaubriand

and promenade with the young men, while

empty carriages rattle by, smelling

of axle-grease and leather.

Like a huge draught horse, Balzac

yawns, snorts, lumbers

to the watercloset

and, flinging open his gown,

trains a great stream of piss into the

early nineteenth century

chamberpot. The lace curtain catches

the breeze. Wait! One last scene

before sleep. His brain sizzles as

he goes back to his desk—the pen,

the pot of ink, the strewn pages.

A girl pushes a bicycle through tall grass,

through overturned garden furniture, water

rising to her ankles. Cups without handles

sail upon the murky water, saucers

with fine cracks in the porcelain.

At the upstairs window, behind damask curtains,

the steward’s pale blue eyes follow.

He tries to call.

Shreds of yellow note paper

float out onto the wintry air, but the girl

does not turn her head.

Cook is away, no one hears.

Then two fists appear on the window sill.

He leans closer to hear the small

whisperings, the broken story, the excuses.

This room for instance:

is that an empty coach

that waits below?

    Promises, promises,

    tell them nothing

    for my sake.

I remember parasols,

an esplanade beside the sea,

yet these
flowers…

    Must I ever remain behind —

    listening, smoking,

    scribbling down the next far thing?

I light a cigarette

and adjust the window shade.

There is a noise in the street

growing fainter, fainter.

I don’t know the names of flowers

or one tree from another,

nevertheless I sit in the square

under a cloud of Papisostros smoke

and sip Hellas beer.

Somewhere nearby there is a Colossus

waiting for another artist,

another earthquake.

But I’m not ambitious.

I’d like to stay, it’s true,

though I’d want to hang out

with the civic deer that surround

the Hospitaler castle on the hill.

They are beautiful deer

and their lean haunches flicker

under an assault of white butterflies.

High on the battlement a tall, stiff

figure of a man keeps watch on Turkey.

A warm rain begins to fall.

A peacock shakes drops of water

from its tail and heads for cover.

In the Moslem graveyard a cat sleeps

in a niche between two stones.

Just time for a look

into the casino, except

I’m not dressed.

Back on board, ready for bed,

I lie down and remember

I’ve been to Rhodes.

But there’s something else —

I hear again the voice

of the croupier calling

thirty-two, thirty-two

as my body flies over water,

as my soul, poised like a cat, hovers —

then leaps into sleep.

Enraged by what he called

    the impertinence of the Hellespont

                         in blowing up a storm

               which brought to a halt

                         his army of 2 million,

                                        Herodotus relates

                         that Xerxes ordered 300

                                        lashes be given

         that unruly body of water besides

    throwing in a pair of fetters, followed

               by a branding with hot irons.

You can imagine

    how this news was received

                         at Athens; I mean

    that the Persians were on the march.

We stand around the burning oil drum

and we warm ourselves, our hands

and faces, in its pure lapping heat.

We raise steaming cups of coffee

to our lips and we drink it

with both hands. But we are salmon

fishermen. And now we stamp our feet

on the snow and rocks and move upstream,

slowly, full of love, toward the still pools.

This yardful of the landlord’s used cars

does not intrude. The landlord

himself, does not intrude. He hunches

all day over a swage,

or else is enveloped in the blue flame

of the arc-welding device.

               He takes note of me though,

often stopping work to grin

and nod at me through the window. He even

apologizes for parking his logging gear

in my living room.

               But we remain friends.

Slowly the days thin, and we

move together towards spring,

towards high water, the jack-salmon,

the sea-run cutthroat.