The View They Arrange

By Dale Going
my husband thinks we have too many chairs in our house. I know
we need more, my friend has enough chairs, many many more than
we have. I told my husband: chairs, picture frames — they are the same.
 
 
when my friend and her husband have talked about looking for
a different place to live, one with space for the families of their
six children, he says, "but I want this view." on the interior walls,
facing away from the sea, are paintings of this view — "well, it's not
exactly our view, but close" — taken somewhere on this small stretch
of land near the lighthouse, the painting of their house really of
the one next door, a corner of their house visible in the background
(receding in the perspective). in the Whistleresque painting, the house
next door is a train rushing forward through the night fog.
 
 


our daughter believing,
                             acting as though
(she believes) she can control the universe
                                                                          externals, personal
 
at dinner, after three days joking of this
(its urgency, extravagant tampering,
how she commands and navigates,
exhorts us: parents, boyfriend),
I say, too bluntly, "so —
have you thought of modifying
                      your
                   behavior?"
                                             crude, hurt her,
she cries, is embarrassed, she says,
thinking the others in the restaurant have heard,
"I know you don't mean to, but you're hard of hearing,
                                                                           you talk too loud."
 
 
 
 
reading garden books the last week, immersed in
gardens, in words, in visions of gardens
 
deer ate all the roses, the night Lily left the gate open
 
 
her husband wants this view, there is a place down the road, much larger,
it has the same view (nearly). he wants to move there, but the houses are entirely
different, the new one very formal, "a real house," my friend says. she is reluctant
to leave her perfect — the perfect she created — structure.
the chair, the frame, matter as much as the view they arrange.
 
 
 

ashamed, aware
I've cut too close
                                              "your behavior"
 
                               jokes are dismissable/admissible
 
this was criticism. I want to
 
apologize but do not
 
explanation       self-righteous (remember
an earlier fight,
when she lived with us, her shouting,
"why do you always have to be right?"
me shouting,
               "because I AM!")
 
 
 
 
or sinking, return
 
 
the authenticity (not authority) of others’ visions, seeing New York
thirdhand at the moment of being there firsthand with my friend.
my my interpretation of her memories — she’d lived there — inextricable
from my own immediately perceived visions.
 

descending into the subway on an August day, the steps down
to an aqua pool filled with Perrier. everyone breathing in the
airpockets the bubbles made, cool and floating under water.
they rose from the subway refreshed.
 
 
her dream became my strongest image of the city
 
 
 

later, we go to the movies, split up at the multiplex,
the men to a macho flick (we see the previews of their film/
glad we missed it).
 
she and I sit in the last row
— she doesn't want anyone behind her — spatial
                             boundary preemptive,
compelling
                                                                         throughout the movie
she tells latecomers the two seats beside her are taken. I talk to her about
 
                            imagining her aura
 

                I want to give her the house she wants.
 
                I love her so. I want her to know.
 
                like my mom
 
 
 
 
reading about newborn babies in the hospital, cribs ribboned
in blue and pink, "as if that's not enough," she says, "the cribs
are labeled: 'I'm a boy!' 'it's a girl!' "

 
looking out from oneself: I and thou. (bowing acknowledgment
in that "thou": blessing.) looking out for oneself: I and it.

 
 

imagining her aura — huge and wide —
so if someone sits near — it won't matter —
she'll still have personal space — "I know, I know" —
driving her Delta 88 — and she squeezes my hand —
 

her father out fishing on a boat in the afterlife
(according to the psychic) — something about wine —
your mother — tell her — "my mother doesn't drink" —
tell your mother to stop whining.
 
 
 

it is not one view. from the same chair it’s constantly changing,
coloring, waving. from different chairs, more so. gradations. water,
clearest of notices that we are (the world is) in constant motion.
 
putting forth first: we are? the world is?
 
world/we. moving out from where we are/moving in from out there.
the ferry crossing back and forth to the mainline, to “America.”
this place called simply, by islanders, “the island.” THE island.
there is no other frame or chair, no need for description, the world
is circumscribed.
 
 
 
 

                                                                                              For Becca, Betty, Marie

Dale Going, "The View They Arrange" from The View They Arrange.  Copyright © 1994 by Dale Going.  Reprinted by permission of Kelsey St. Press.

Source: The View They Arrange (Kelsey St. Press, 1994)