Sun In Days

I tried to live that way for a while, among

the trees, the green breeze,

chewing Bubblicious and by the edge of the pool      spitting it out.

The book open on my chest, a towel

at my back      the diving board thwoking,

and leaving never arrived      Cut it out

my mother said     my brother

clowning around with a water gun     Cut it out.

The planes arrowed into silence, fourteen,

fifteen, sixteen, always coming

home from summer     over the bridge to Brooklyn.

The father stabbed on Orange Street,

the Betamax in the trash,

the Sasha doll the dog chewed up, hollow

plastic arms gaping. Powdered pink lemonade,

tonguing the sweet grains

                                                       liquid-thick.

I could stand in that self   for years

wondering is it better to

anticipate than to age     Imagining

children with five different men,

a great flood that would destroy

your possessions     and free you to wander.

Bathing suits and apples and suntan oil

and a mother bending over you

shadow of   her face on yours. It’s gone,

that way, the breeze, the permanent pool.

A father saying “ghost” and the sheets

slipping off   the oak tree’s bough.

When I wake, leaves

in the water. You could say green

forever and not be lying.

The pond near the house in Maine

where we lived for one year

to “get away” from the city     the pond

where the skaters     on Saturdays came,

red scarves     through white snow,

voices drawing near and     pulling

away, trees against the clouds. Trying to live

off   the land for a while. Too hard

in the end my father said.     What did he say?

Forget it     you weren’t listening     He wore

fishing overalls most days and stank of   guts.

Our shouts slipping, the green garbage cans

edging the white scar pond,

so many days like secrets about to be

divulged . . .

                                         White snow;

to stink of   fish guts but     to be trying

to live:               the pond near the house

and the sound of   voices     drawing near.

As you aged you got distracted, indebted.

In the hospital around my mother

the machines     beeped,

the long leads of   the heart monitor,

drooping parabolas.

It’s not worth dying for     she said. What

was it she meant? Swollen shells, the desiccated brown

seedpods we used to pinch onto our noses

and skate about     putting on airs.

Then the books opened

their pages and with our red woolen

scarves flying and the Freezy Freakies’

once-invisible hearts reddening

into the cold we disappeared.

Evian bottles skitter against the chain-link fence.

It’s gone     that way     the green

planes arrowing into silence     gum wrappers

slipping to the ground.

O wild West Wind     be thou our friend

and blow away the trash.

Salvage us from     the heap of our making and

Cut it out my mother said     Stop worrying

about the future, it doesn’t

belong to us and we don’t belong to it.

The surface more slippery, slick

and white the ice. I stand at the pond’s edge

gather the information     darkening there

hello algae     hello fish pond

my mind in the depths     going.

On the beach I dig, tunnel

to the hands of   the woman who stitched

this red shirt     holes all the way to China.

It got so easy to     get used to it,

the orchestration of meaning

against the night, life

a tower you could climb on

not a junk heap     pale picture books

yellowing on the shelves. It got

so     I close my eyes

and walk along the hospital hall.

The iris quivering in the March light,

a nurse taking my mother’s pulse

not paid enough to help us

as we wished to be helped. And your hope

left behind     turning the pages of   magazines,

the models in Prada. As a girl

it was a quest, to feel exploded every second,

pudding pops     and Vietnam vets

standing on the corner shaking their Styrofoam

cups.     Holding her

cup my mother stands, petting the dog,

it’s 1982     the sun tunneling in     she drinks her coffee

Cut it out or     Forget it or     Hello.

Look, I’ve made a telephone for us.

Put that cup to your ear, and I’ll put it to mine,

and listen     I just need to find

one of those Styrofoam cups

and what about you     where did you

go what kind of night is it there

electric synthetic blackened or burnt.

At night they come to you

distorted and bright, like an old print on a light box,

present,     present,          not quite.

Are we inventing them as we sleep,

or are they still     happening

in a time we can’t touch?

The hockey game on the blue

tv glowing and slowing     I come home

to a man slumped on the couch not-quite-saying

a greeting     all the gone ones there

the slap of skates     all gone

and the commentator it’s going on forever

the blade moving along rink

says What a slapshot what a shot.

You make a life, it is made of days and

days, ordinary and subvocal, not busy

becoming what they could be,               dark furlings of

tiny church feelings, mysterious, I mean,

and intricate like that high-windowed light —

intricate and mysterious          I come home.

Near our house we hung out

on the Promenade after school the boys smoking

the security systems in the Center blinking     a disco

party blue red / blue red the East River

reflecting scraped sky     cornices and clouds

we could hear the roar of cars across

it and taste the chemical air

of   the offices the fathers worked in

we’d been there to pick them up

for the long weekend in the Catskills

the hum-gray computers, the ibm Selectrics

massive on the desks, eleven, twelve,

thirteen, riding the graffitied subways,

flirting, the boys     grabbing us calling     hey     hey.

Changeable one day to the next.

Jon talking of atheism

blond hair in strips          At night the bomb mushrooming

over the Statue of   Liberty, white

blinding everywhere.          Oh, she said, don’t worry

just a dream          just a dream.

Everyone is scared of   Russia.

Imagine          she laughed     We used to

have to hide under our desks!

Forget it     you weren’t listening     I was trying

Don’t worry it gets you nothing

to tell you something     the air cold

the maples bare your mother pregnant

Come on the horses are     past the window

with a son much younger than you

of   the house she rode them past

the river where all the Catholic kids sailed ice boats

uncles taking cash to wire home to Ireland.

The future isn’t here yet, it’s always

going to be,     but I’m holding you,

walking the Promenade, thirty-six,

the ferry crossing the river again.

and for a while               rain on the dirt road

and the pastured gray horse     holding Chex Mix

up to its fuzzed mouth     pockets of   time

all summer     eating  ghosts in the arcade

Pac-Man alive quarter after quarter

I keep trying     Cut it out she said and

forget it     I was trying to tell you

my father cooking fish in the kitchen

licking his thumb     to turn the page.

In the meantime you try

not to go into a kind of exile —

Oh, you read too many books, says my friend

Dan     Here’s the tv. And the small voices

of children     enter the room, they sound

so narrow and light and possible. But

don’t you think we’re always making the same

standing at the car rental

kind of mistake we began by making

at the last minute, rushing to call

our fathers before setting off

for vacation.     It’s warmer

this August than it has been for decades.

Still the sun bathing us isn’t preposterous

or cold.          Grace: imagine it

and all the afterworld fathers sleeping

with their hair perfectly          combed

faces mortician-clean

unlike

                                        the ones they wore.

In the motel Reagan on tv     his hair

in that parted wave     the milk prices up,

my mother says, inflation.     Key Food

on Montague, the linoleum tiles dirty and cracked,

the dairy case goose-pimpling my skin.

Those tiles are still there.

She is dead now     and so is he.

I know it seems bare to say it

bare to     bare linoleum tiles.

You who come after me

I will be underfoot but     Oh,

come off it, start again. We all live

amid surfaces and                    and I

wish I had the     Start over     Come on thou

Step into the street, amidst

the lightly turning trash,

your hair lifting in the wind     Remember

I have thought of   you

the lines of our skates converging

in a future etc. etc., the past

the repository of   what can be salvaged, grace

watering the basil

                                       on the windowsill, until

the day comes of   looking back at it all,

like a projectionist at a movie

slipping through the reel, the stripped sound of   time —

I tried to live that way for a while

Bubblicious and          spitting it out

Only forget it you          were

if   I could hear your voice     again     I could pretend

Rise and shine she called in the

morning     Rise and shine

leaves in the water     intricate and

the dying Dutch elms the cool blue pool

pockets of    time          Sun-In bleaching our hair

the faces they wore     arcade ghosts

and lilacs by the door in Maine

where she leaned     close to me     said smell

the planes buzzed     a purple light     fingers

sticky if   I could only hear it

again     you could say forever     tonguing

the sweet grains     you could say forever     and not be