Hawaiʻi Review Volume 1, Number 1: Winter 1973

EDITOR

George Czarnecki

Special thanks to Dana Naone for her help in shaping this issue.

FICTION EDITOR

POETRY EDITORS

David Evans Nengin Mahony

Michael McPherson

EDITORIAL ASSIST ANTS

Dan Hall Steve Heller

Cover photograph courtesy of the Honolulu A cademy of Arts Lending Library from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum's Davey Collection ADVISORY BOARD

Philip Damon Jan MacMillan Peter Nelson

Hawa ii Literary Review is published twice yearly by the Board of Publications, Associated Students of the University of Hawai i. Subscriptions and manuscripts should be addressed to Hawaii Literary Review, He me nway Ha ll , U niversity of H awaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.

Manuscripts should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Subscriptio n rates, $3.00 per year; single copies, $1.50. ~

1973 by the University of Hawa ii

HAWAII REVIEW T

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VOLUME ONE

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A

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NUMBER ONE

y

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WINTER 1973

Poetry ROBERT BLY

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TOMAS TRANSTROMER

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LOUIS JENKINS W. S. MERWIN DAVID IGNATOW GR EGORY ORR EARLE BIRNEY DANA NAONE LEONARD KUBO GLENN SEGAWA CYNTHIA SA H A ROLD YOSHIKAWA

14 16 17 19

20 31

33 35 36 37

MICHAEL AMONG AUDREY SAK IH A RA ROBERT LAMANSKY EM I I SHII GLENN KIMATA

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D ENN IS SALEH JOHN UNTE REC KER JOHN WOODS Sl Y CEDERING FOX ROBERT L. JONES GALWAY KINNELL WILLIAM STAFFORD

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DAVID STEINGASS

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46 47

65 67 68

69 70 71

Two Poems Written on a Visit to Hawaii Three Poems Four Poems The Sleeping Mountain Four Poems Two Poems Four Feet Between Two Poems Three Poems Three Poems Poems Adapted f rom the Chinese Flight Information Two Poems Two Poems Tantalus Makiki Pumping Station Vietcong Woman Cocoon Island The Girl Who Had Borne Too Much Like a Woman in the Kitchen Setting This Down Poem Sitka llotusbound

Fiction JAMES SHIELDS R. D . SKILLINGS EARL COOPER C. E. POYERMAN C HRIST INE COOK NOTES

6 23 38

48 72

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The Views of l onnie Mc Kean House in the Dunes In Salmon Run The Electric Dress Night Stalker

Robert Bly

TWO POEMS WRITTEN ON A V ISIT TO H AWA II

for Peter, who invited me, and for the students whom I met there

\. S\T T\ NG ON 'THE SHORE NEAR LAHA\NA A'T DUSK The surf pulls away fro m the scattered sto nes in front of me, that shine like kno ts o f unexplained anger left behind in dreams. The Pacific rises from what is unknow n and frightening to throw itself on the rocks, these o ld me n's head s scatte red shinin g o n the shore.

T hese islands have lain he re fo r a lo ng tim e. I saw yesterday a Ch urc h of the Nazarene, surro unded by coconut trees. Nea rby a white horse wandering in the sugar cane. Late r, o n a bluff loo k ing over the last few taro pa tc hes, my frie nd a nd I came upon a Hawa iia n girl, on the grass, s he had been crying; next to he r foot was a package of Salcms and a ca r key w ith a ra bbit's foot. In L a haina, o ld pho togra phs of whales tied alongside the s hips, being c ut up like J ews, the earl y poll ute rs s inging as they worked , Melville prais ing it a ll.

A nd the moon above hurries backward th rough the clouds like a natio n headed fo r d isaste r - it moves through bad Presidents and the n is hidde n e ntirel y. It docs not come o ut. TJ1e West is a wo lf-mouth. Hawa iians give up their gods to liche n and the caw-gods. It all ha ngs on frig hte ning stones. The ocean isla nds, invaded by the ratio nall y mad, by those who cannot sing while they paddle their ocean canoes towa rd the o ute r surf. Cars appear, brou ght a thousand miles, the rowers路 a rm s g row heavy nearing the reef. The islands in vad ed by peop le w ho can no t sing.

2. SITT ING IN A ROC K COVE ON KAE A PO INT T he who le rock in let rece ives wate r. Water boils in over unde rwate r rocks, then swiftly pulls bac k, among c urrents w ith d iffere nt thoughts, everyt hing sweeping a nd howling, now sudd e nly clear, letting us see the ho les o n the rock fl oo r . Tho ug hts hurry in aga in, trying to leap up the sides, the who le inlet like an eyeball, mad sights climbing t he wa lls. The inner nostrils fee l the bite of t he sa lt , the water is too wild for seaweed, but limpe ts understa nd - and it goes on for centu ri es, a nd no one gets tired of it ... the re is no o ne to get tired! A m a n meditating sits s ilent for ho urs, a nd suddenly brea ks o ut s inging , the heart pumps, only the scawaters e nte ring and leaving, jumping up to to uc h the gull 's foot, the jellyfis h ope ns a nd closes, the mouth longs for the salt water.

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Tomas Transtromer THE TR EE AND T H E SKY

A tree is walking aro und in the rain , hurri es past us in the squis hy gray.

It has some job to do. It picks life up from the rai n, like a blackbird in a cherry orchard.

When the rain ends the tree sto ps.

It's visible standing there on c lear nig hts waiting j ust as we do fo r the mo ment when the s nowflakes blossom in space.

SUMMER GRASS

So much has happened.

Reality has eaten away so much of us.

But summer, at last: A great air port- the control tower leads down load after load with chilled people from space.

Grass and flowers-we arc land ing.

The grass has a green fo reman. ! go and c heck in.

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•

C MAJOR

As he stepped out into the street after a meeting with her the snow whirled in the air.

Winter had come whi le they were making love..

The night was white.

He walked fast from joy.

The streets s lanted down.

Smiles passed eve ryone smiled behind turned up coll ars.

How free it all was!

And all the question marks started to sing about God's life.

That's how it seemed to him.

Some music was loose and walked in the blowing snow with lo ng strides.

The universe in migration toward the note C. A trembling needle pointing toward C. An hour risen above anxieties.

How easy it was!

Ever yone s miled behind turned up collars.

Translated from the Swedish by R obert Bly

5

James Shields

THE VIEWS OF JONNIE McKEAN This is the General Purpose Medium on a hill just north of Mere et !'Enfant, under the she lter of which Jonnie McKean used to li ve. That was McKean's cot, up front there, ncar the center pole.

A guy with matted hair parts the canvas flaps a nd says, " did you hear? Bayonet been sa pped ... Jonnie McKean is dead, man ... " Rain wate r tlows down the center aisle, between the wooden cots, la pping at Mc Kea n's duffe l. At first the gunners and loaders and drivers in a huddle at the rear o f the tent do not speak, do not look up. Then Ivory Lee Harris flaps his cards against the ammo crate and says, ''w hat Fletcher want with Jonnie McKean?''

And somebody else says , "McKean still in Singapore . .. say, who dealt thi s shit?"

And somebody else, "how about we get some of McKean's Platoon SergeantE-7-type money into thi s here game''" And somebody, ''McKean ain't around . .. must be over to the C lu b.''

And, "a in 't McKean st ill on Rand R? .. . look here, catch that ace, some body, before it tloat to the sea . .. " "Can't you hear me?" says the guy with matted hair, a tent flap in each hand . ''J onnie McKean is ... " J o nnie McKean is dead.

***** This is J o nnic McKean rolling socks at Fort Quisling, New J e rsey.

Go ahead and lay them side-on-side, Jonnic. Smooth them down. Roll. And tuck. ow put them in t he top drawer of yo ur foot loc ker. next to the picture of you a nd Elladine in Chi ld's on the Boardwa lk at At lantic City. " Look here, Ho me," says A lbert C hurch , the thin man perched on the end o f Mc Kean's bunk, 路路you coming or not?"

Jonni e rolls, then tucks.

Jonnie McKean is a mode l trainee. They ca ll him that because when they say, "s hoot, McKea n," he wi ll take up anyone a half-doze n weapons and fire it "Expert."'

And when they say, "throw, McKean," he will put a grenade out fifty meters or more and lay it in somebody's pocket. And when th ey say, " run , McKean," he will snug-up his big brown boots and run the mile in six minutes flat.

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A " model tra inee." " Look here, Ho me," says Albert Church, " how about we go into Brown's Mills, dr ink some , greeze, maybe scare us up a o ld wo man? ... I won't axe you but three o r fo ur mo re times ..."

"No, Albert," says J onnie McKean, " I think I'll just ro ll these here socks."

***** This is Jonnie McKean and his loader, Richard " Peanuts" Rottenstein, out on Landing Zone Bayonet, a sho rt while befo re the sa pping. Yo u can see the big 106 Reco illess Rifle still mo unted on the gun jeep there to th e right. And then the coils of concertin a wire.

The men take up a sandbag in each hand and hustle ac ross to their perimete r emplace ment. They pack the bags down.

McKea n s ings his favorite song. " ... there I go, th ere I go, there I -uh go ... " And Peanuts re flects o n something he read o nce in the Nutley Sun ." . .. what I mean is, do they really take a man's ears? take a man's ba lls even'! them goo ks I mean ..." " ... pretty baby," sings McKean, "you are the soul who s naps my contro l . . ."

In the distance, there, a full company of infantry is s pread over the cho pper pad . The prelude to an airmobile insertio n. Big, shin y s licks rock and clap o ver th at secto r of the perimeter. The concertina wire heaves. Trip flares burst into light.

T he door-gunners - sno bs, elitists - lean out of the s lic ks and make faces at the infantrymen - paddy- pounders, grunts - on the pad be low.

Rich ard " Peanuts" Ro ttenstein shapes a sandbag with the fl at of his entrenching tool, press ing his di a lectic." .. . but how can they do shit like that? take a man's ears, a man's .. . I mean, how can they do shit like that?" " ... suc h a funn y thing but eve r-time yo u near me," goes McKean's version of 路 Moody's Mood fo r Lo ve, " I never kin behave ... "

***** T his is the brow nstone in North Sixth Street where Jo nnie and Elladine McKean rented a two-room flat in 1951 . They sit in the tiny kitchen. Plans are made over coffee and d o nuts fro m Lester's place.

Elladine will ma inta in the a partment while Jo nnie is- in Ko rea, they decide. " But I don't wa nt you he re a ll a lo ne ," protests Jo nnie, "and mama say her door a lways be open ..." " So you can have a place to come home to," says Elladine, dec iding, taking a big hand, " I will ma intai n the apartment while you fa r away ... " T here's Jo nnie , late r th at afternoon, clim bing up the dark sta irway with the Newark Star-Ledger under his arm. Little G eneva Crow ningburg says, " Mista McC lean, kin you fi x my Griselda? Ro nnie Ray we nt and bust her all up." She tugs at Jonnie's baggy green pants.

J onnie cradles th e bro ken do ll. It's abo ut as big as his hand.

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"Please, Mista McClean? " " If I just had me some light," says Jonnie, " I'd fix this here quick as you co uld say, 'ketch a tiger by the toe, if he holler ... '" Little Geneva C rown ingburg sits at Jennie's feet. She s miles for the first time.

***** He re's one of Resting and Recuperating Jonn ie McKean poo lsidc at the Seven Palms in Singapore.Big McKean in red trunks and dark g lasses sips a tall drin k and listens to his stomach rumble. He cons iders the even ing meal: " I a in't had no Eyeta li an food in a long time ... now what did Elladinc call that ro lled beef wi th the string? ... brijuty?"

A s lim Malay girl s plashes a nd twitte rs in the gree n water. She waves a tan palm at Jo nnic McKean.

Cool McKea n ogles the beautiful Malay in the wh ite bathing suit and thinks, "yeah, I'll take me a ride up to Gino's, later, and get me some of that brijuty."

Now McKea n notices that with concentration he can sec right through t he bea utiful Malay's wet cotton suit. He adjusts his Po laroids.

*** ** T his is J on nie, pen-in-hand, re-enlisting for the last time. Captain Bruce Willians, the lab technician turned infantry o fficer, stands behind him. The s ma ll sweaty ma n wit h the camera is the Brigad e Histori a n. " Sergeant McKean," says the Histori an, " what arc your retirement plans? fo r the record."

"Well," says gri nning McKean, " I got o nl y a year and a half to go now, and it 's been tough ... the Army's put me here, and then put me there ... " " Your plans, Sergeant Mc Kean?" " I think I'll o pen a little c lub, back home in Newark. A good clean place where a man could take his woman of a Saturday night. Have a drink , hear some music.

It'll be called l onnie McKean's Melody Lounge. I plan to ... " "Thanks a lo t, sarge."

Captain Willians puts his arm around short-timer McKean and t he Brigade Historian takes their picture. For the record.

***** This is o ne of J onnie and E lladine McKean at the corner o f McCarter Highway and Third Avenue. Across the busy highway - across Third A ve nue from Michael Pici's Expressway Shell service station - is a vacant lot. Jonn ie and Elladine came here often to inspect the vacant lot.

The '47 Buick - there, the one w ith the fox ta ils and mud flaps - is full of Puerto Ricans who wonder how they mig ht get a dollar's worth of Super Shell o ut of Michae l Pici without giving him a dollar. No w the Puerto Ricans make thei r way up Pici 's asphalt driveway. They drag a tlat spare tire boosted ea rlier in the

8

day off the many-times humiliated Henry J parked forever at the corner of Mulberry and Market Streets.

Jon nie and Elladinc cross McCarter Highway and stand in their vacant lot. They wade in its overgrowth, kick its em pty wine bottles and beer cans.

"Cinderblocks," says Jon nie McKean , turning a rusted potato masher, "that's all it take ... a little paint ... I could do the work my-own-self." " How about Tick Tock Spot?" says Elladine. She examines a Ripple bottle against the grey sky. " I like that. Tick Tock Spot."

Now s ix Puerto Ricans flop a dead spare tire at Michael Pici 's feet. Pici look s skyward, mouth open, palms upturned and quivering. It's the Italian "I don't believe it" gesture.

The small dark men loom at his elbows. They move their hands rapidly, importuning.

"No," says Jo nnie McKean, tossing aside the potato masher, "l onnie McKean's Melody Lounge, and that's that:' The Puerto Ricans drag and kick the thready spare back to their '47 Buick with the pom-pom fringe and the hood-mounted halcyon. Pici had been firm . Now he stands in his asphalt driveway giving the Italian "go-thc-fuck-back-whcrc-youcame-from" gesture.

The Puerto Ricans gather behind their s ilent ca r and begin to inch it back down Third Avenue, toward the ri ver. 路路But I like the name Tick Tock," says Elladinc, "bring the people in of a Saturday night .. :路 "That's all been taken ca re of ... lonnie McKean's Melody Lounge."

The driveway bell sounds, and Michael Pici lumbers toward a '46 C hrysler with a hand-painted green roof. He wipes his hands in an o ily rag.

***** Here's a good look at Landing Zone Bayonet from outside the perimeter, just before it was sapped. These small men in tan shorts are the sappers. They don't wear shirts because they wi ll soon have to slither through the barbed concertina wire that su rro unds Landing Zone Bayonet.

The sappers smoke pot under a banana tree and watch McKean and Richard " Peanuts" Rottenstein lift the 106 Recoilless Rifle off the gun jeep. They watch McKean and Peanuts line up rounds of ammo, and hustle sandbags to the ir emplacement. They circulate a fresh joint, and whisper the imminent sapping of Landing Zone Bayonet. ..... come let us v isit o ut there," sings McKean, " in that new Promised Land ... " It's hard to sec the chopper pad from this angle because of the triplestacks of concertina wire , but you can see the cluste r of hovering s licks. " . .. maybe there, we can find, " goes lonnie McKean, "a good place to usc this lovi ng state of mind ... " One sappcr holds up a leat her pouch for the ot hers to see. He attaches it to his

9

waist with a length of vine. He holds up an elk-handled knife for the others to see. '' .. . I'm so tired of be ing without," sings McKean , ''and never kno wing what love's about .. . .''

"' * * * * This is Elladinc McKean, 19, o f North Sixth Street, Newark, New Jersey. T all. delicate, and nice. She is dying in the arms of one Asa Babel, night o rderly at St Barnabas Hos pita l. Babel wraps Elladinc in some wrinkled s heets of the day's StarLedger, and says , "some joke r just kicked her out o f a old Caddy and then drove off ... she's cut bad ... " Babel begins to c ry. His hands arc purple with newsprint.

Now Elladine is dead, Dr C C Jones pres iding. The crowd admires her blue velvet dress, speculating, pressing fo rward.

Whe n they ca ught Travis Huntsbcrry beside a vio lated parking meter down on Market Street a week later, he just put aside hi s can o pener and his cap full of coins. and said: "she was my woma n, see? .. . then I found her o ut to Lester's Tick Tock Diner doing head-jobs in a phone booth, see? . .. nickel and diming, see? .. . so I too k this bottle in my right hand, sec? ... and I split it, sec? ... and I got that ve lvet dress of hers in my left hand, see? . .. " PFC Jo nnie McKean rece ived the de tails during a ten minute interview with the Pusan represe ntative of the America n Red Cross.

***** Here's Jonnie McKean just a minute or so before he took a half-pound o f hot, whirling shrapnel. He washes in hi s steel pot. Lathers. He begins to coax razor bumps fro m his plump cheeks.

Richard " Peanuts" Rottcnste in s its in the gun jeep scribbling a letter to his mother. A letter from Landing Zone Bayonet to Nutley, New Jersey.

If you look beyond Peanuts and we ll into the concertina, you wi ll see the sappers guiding their satchels of Chi-Com grenades thro ugh the coils and under the barbs and trip wires and around the dangling beer cans. They arc on their way to a giggl y, uproarious daylight sap.

Don't look for ritlcs. Sappers don' t carry any. Might as well throw yo ur gun down a sump as give it to a sappcr.

McKea n rinses, rc lat hcrs. He begins again his painful coax ing. Peanuts hooks his little feet in the steering wheel and to uches the pencil point to his tongue.

***** McKea n comes in the front door of the two-room flat in North Si xth Street. He snaps on the light.

There's the TV. And the convertible sofa. The tiny kitc hen is dark . " I'm ho me," he says.

***** This is Jo nnie McKean o nly a week or so ago work ing over the breech mcchan-

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of his 106 mm Reco illess Rifl e. That's an o iled tee-shirt, the gree n thing in his hand. He has a bit of steel wool in the right. l onnie sings, " there I go, there I go, there I -uh go . . ."

Captain Bruce Willi ans walks with digni ty from the Orderly Room, polishing an apple o n his sleeve . T his is the same fastidio us little man from Little C lo ud, Iowa, who, bored with lab work, activated his Natio nal Guard co mmission and wo und up in charge of the perimeter sec urity of Hill 35. He fi lls a day munching appl es, and wo ndering why he co mmands o nly Jo nnie McKean a nd his platoo n of gun jeeps, and not a hard-charging, ass-kicking line company. " ... there' s music all around me," goes l onnie , " crazy music -music that keeps calling me so very close to you, turns me to a slave . . . '' "Hey, McKean." " Hey, s ir. Howzit? and a in't it a fine day?" " I just got a call from Divisio n TOC," says Willi ans, a sputtering founta in of apple bits, " they want me to detail a gun and crew out to Landing Zone Bayonet . .. like, to beef-up the ir perimeter . . ."

McKean works the o iled tee-s hirt. " Push-come-to-shove," he says, " Bayonet be needing a good gun and crew . .."

McKean clangs the breech s hut. He moves o ut alo ng the slim black barrel, steel wool he ld high in his right hand. " I can give the m Ivory Lee Harris and Peanuts," says McKean, " and the num ber two gun ... Bayonet be squared away ... " "Yo u don't understand, Mc Kean, I want you out there, personal. This is im portant. Divis ion Tactical Operations Center , after a ll . . . " McKean wipes the a pple decoratio ns off his 106. " Long time since I been deta iled anyw here, s ir ... " "This isn't a detai l, McKean. One does not 'deta il' a Platoon Sergean t E-7. Yo u' re just d o ing me a specia l favor."

McKean stud ies a dia mo nd of rust near the muzzle. Grinds it off. Wi pes the spot down. ¡•.. . you have your best gun and your best crewma n and yo urself read y to move at 0630 ho urs tomo rro w . . ."

Willians tosses the apple core away and marches back to th e O rderly Room.

Sweat shows in dark patches o n his back.

Jonnie McKe an o ils the green tee -shi rt.

"0 baby," he sings, " you make me feel so good, let me take you by the ha nd . . ."

In the distance, there, Capta in Bruce Willians takes an apple out of the Orderly Room's Panaso nic refr ige rator. He laug hs at the conversati on of his Perso nnel Spec ia lists.

***** Here's Jo nnie McKean coming in the fron t door of Leroy's Cozy Co rner d ow n o n Springfie ld A ven ue. T he men at the bar do not look up fro m the ir beers and hard-

II

boiled eggs, do not s peak. " Hiya, Jo nnie," says Leroy at las t, wiping his hands in the long white apron. " Hiya, Leroy," says Jo nnic McKean, " long time, no see." "'nother beer," calls Bo nd He nry Turner, "these eggs sure do make a man thirsty."

***** This is Landing Zone Bayo net with the first three Ch i-Corns in the act of explo ding. Richard " Peanuts" Rottenstein begins to tumble toward the 106 emplacement, his feet still hoo ked in the steering w heel, the Nutley letter sti ll in his hand.

And Jo nnie McKean, a startled look on his face, is going down s low. He drips great ba lls of lather.

A door g unner in the slick hovering overhead watches the perimeter positio n be ing sapped and screams into his throat mike. He doesn't know what the fuck to shoot at.

Now Pea nuts settles in a heap near the gun. Three mo re Chi-Com grenades detonate, one still in the hand of a puzzled sa pper. Jo nnie McKean closes hi s eyes.

The sapper with the leather pouch and the elk-handled knife g iggles, and moves toward Rich ard " Peanuts" Ro tte nstein.

Down on the chopper pad the grunts have heard the explosions. O ne turns to another and says, " is this mother be ing sapped?"

***** This is lean Jo nnie McKean fresh fro m Ko rea. He stands in the vacant lot at the corner of McCarter Hig hway and Third A ve nue - the one just across fro m the Expressway Shell service statio n run by Esperanza Dominguez and her two smiling sons.

Winter in Newark, and the sky is low a nd grey. The wind coming off the river is cold. Jo nnie McKean , a lone, bends a nd picks up a crusted wine bo ttle.

The dr iveway bell sounds in the winter afternoon. Espcranza and her boys come out of the office sm iling an d wiping th eir hands in gree n rags. T hey surrou nd a '5 1 Kaiser.

The cold wind comes in low off the river, tugs at Jon nie McKean's cap.

***** There's Jon nie McKean o n his knees, trembling. Dying. There's dead Peanuts with his stee ring wheel, his letter.

The sappcr with the leather pouc h runs in sma ll circles, laug hing, crying. He decorates the lo ng barre l of the 106 with pieces of dead Richard "Peanuts" Rottenstein .

In the background you can see the grunts pounding up the road from the chopper pad. They lock magazines in their black rifles. They are business- like.

One sapper continues to poke around in the rubble of Jonnie McKean's gu n emplacement, laughing, crying. He is looking for his right hand.

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The pouch-ma n w ipes h is e lk-ha ndled knife in an o ily g ree n tee-s hirt.

J onnie Mc Kean flo ps fo rward into some e mpty burla p sandbags . A small cloud of red dust ma rks hi s pass ing.

* **** He re's Elladinc peering into the o ld refrigerator in North Si xth St reet.

"J onnic McKea n," s he calls in mock anger, "did you eat up a ll that pic b y yourown-se lf?"

J onnic s inks down into the big easy chair. He hides be hind hi s newspape r.

***** Here's a good shot o f Landing Zo ne Bayone t with the sappers sta ked out hand a nd foot in the old dirt road.

The grunts cove r beatific M cKean with a poncho. But no bod y w ill go ncar Richa rd '' Pea nuts" Rottenstc in . Nobody will go nca r the small pieces of him drying to pa rc hm e nt o n the lo ng, g race ful barrel of the I 06.

The grunt s c ran k up the batte red gun jee p and ro ll it slowly back a nd fo rth over the sa ppc rs. A n office r tells th em to " knoc k it off."

Rain fa lls ove r J o nn ic McKea n's ponc ho .

* **** And he re's one of J o nnic McKean w ith a beauti ful Malay girl d in ing at Gino's on Orcha rd Road in Singapore .The w ithered Chinese a t the cas h registe r is Gino . " Yeah, girl," says J o nnie McKean o ver his red wine, '' I'm go nn a retire in a bout ten mo nths fro m now - th at mea ns quit, see? - the n I'm gonn a b uild me a little place back ho me in Ne wark . You e ver been to Newark, girl?"

She g iggles a nd ta kes his meaty hand. He r breas ts a rc da rk, in a bo wer of film y pastels.

J o nni e Mc Kea n is hungry, and he sa ys to Gino, " br(juty ! br(juty! . . . say, wha t the hell kind of Eyc-tali a n a re you a nyway?"

Gino screws up his face a nd scr atc hes his head w ith a pe nc il.

The beautiful Mala y laug hs, a nd squeezes J o nn ie Mc Kean's big hand .

13

Louis Jenkins THE LAKE

The lake brings the city to an e nd. It is there, always, changing the direction of my walks. So metimes I go for days without coming ncar, catching on ly a glimpse through the trees, a sail, a whi te s pec k turning on the dark blue. Perhaps someone very old touched the back of my wrist, lightl y, for o nl y the briefest mo ment or you said something to me. What was if 1 The waters close a bove my head sudden ly without a sound.

BASKETBALL A huge s ummer afternoon with no sign of rain .. . . The elm trees in the far myard bend and crea k in the wind. The leaves arc dry a nd grey. In the driveway a boy shoots a basketball a t a goal above the garage door . The wind makes shooting difficult and time after time he c hases the loose ball. He s hoots, re bounds, turns, shoots, o n into the afte rnoon. In the s ile nce betwee n the gusts of wind the o nl y sounds arc the thump o f the ball o n the gro und and the rattle of the bare steel rim of the goa l. The gate bangs in the wind , the dog in the yard yawns, stretches, a nd goes back to s leep. A film of dust cove rs the water in the trough. Great clouds of dust rise from o pe n fields that stretch a thousa nd miles beyond the hori zon.

DOING NOTHI G

On a war m d ay Phil a nd I go dow n to the lakeshore, s it on the roc ks at the wate r's edge and drink bee r. There is a cool breeze blowing off La ke Superio r and a few cirrus clouds hi gh above. As we talk a cedar waxwing comes toward us hopping from stone to stone. He comes very ncar and stops. He cocks his head to liste n and look at us. We arc too heavy, o ur wings arc useless, a nd we can sec in o nl y one direction at a tim e. He gives up and tli cs away. The roc k I am sitti ng on is huge and round with a fringe of moss, like hair, around the edge just below the wate rl ine.

It is like s itting atop a monk's head. I reach down and the cold wate r surges up to touch my hand. It sudd enl y occurs to me t hat we a rc alread y und erway and I have no idea how to pilo t this thing!

14

FOR MARLIN PERKINS

When occasionall y a parking meter goes crazy a policeman comes and places a canvas bag over its head.

Inside the dark bag the meter again grows calm.

15

W. S. Merwin THE SLEEPING MOUNTAI N

Under aste rs the colo r of m y shad ow the mountain stirs in its cold slee p dream clo uds are pass ing thro ug h it shaped like me n lying do wn with the me mory o f lights in them wolf puppies from the c liffs cry a ll night whe n eve n the la kes are as lee p after the Ark was abandoned on the peak stars a ppeared in it a nd sailed off into the ni ght with it all a t o nce it is nine years on the plains o f Troy remembe ring the mountain aslee p on one wing like a hum an

16

David lgnatow

I look the sun in the eye: who do you love, I ask.

The sun never replies but I know the truth: it loves itself; so the re-I iving together in the same universe and getting along.

* I shake my fist at a tree and say, You will shed your leaves in time for all your abundance and variety but I will see to it that you continue in your present state in my mind. You have no memory except in me. I'm about to write of you leaf by leaf.

* Body, listen to me: we don't have long to live together but when you have crumbled into dust stir yourselves when the wind blows and fly.

17

David lgnatow SUBWAY

I thought that if he could stoop to pick out rubbish, each piece placed in his bag-a tedio us job in front of crowds, all day the trains at a steady roar , the lighting dim , the ai r stagnantfrom bin to bin, searching to the bottom for gum wrappers, crumpled news pape rs, to rn sandwich bags, c igarette stubs, partic les clinging to his fingers. A ll this without a word, bending at the foot of a steel pillar, it was not too much fo r me to be witness.

18

THE SLEEPING ANGEL

All the rooms of the house fill with smoke, because an angel is sleeping on the chimney.

Outside, black leaves shaped like mouths lie scattered on the lawn.

Snails, little death-swans, glide over these dark lakes.

POEM

One climbs inside a thorntree as easily as another man grows thick fur over his whole body.

But as night descends, eac h man moves toward the door. Once outside, he wraps himself in the cloak of his own shadow.

Arriving by their separate paths, the men gather along the riverbank. They watch the children dancing on the water, dressed in robes made of tiny bones.

19

Earle Birney FOU R FEET BETWEEN

I was extending a patchwork of lint & batten from ankle-sores to my new hee l-cuts absorbed in masochism & bless ing my foresight with bandaids blessing too the voyagers who brought breadfruit to Fiji & this tree casting a benison o f leaves just where th e volcano trail widens do wn to the islet's onl y road (though i'd co nceded to myse lf there were some millio n years of hindsight before the bread fruit learned to grow 3-foot leaves & cannonball -sized seeds to come to terms with perpetuity) The cotto n foli age o n my purpling feet argued however that i'd lea rned no thing much fro m 60 years of being liter ate no thing about coral poison an yway o r the agility of lava to mince ma inland shoes 1 was cosetting a raw big toe with my last band when i grew conscio us a s low pad of other feet was o n the trail so close whe n i loo ked up i caught myself in eyes dee ploeked in a great face Bula i said trying to get it bass & guttural His brows rose like wings Bula bula! he said quickl y & stepped back I must have got my he llo close & waited now fo r that w ide Melanesian grin of welcome But his stare was pitchy & the lo ng bones of his face seemed set in sus picio n even hostility I could read nothing o f him nor guess his age the skin rough leather but the bl ast of hair sootblack as an y yo uth 's my height & about twice my width he stood there a dark tree of fles h o n the basalt stones

20

Suddenl y he spoke but in Fijian I fumbled out my 7 words to say i couldn't speak & i to my toe patch He we nt back to staring Rooster-crows had been filtering thru the mangroves There must be a village close & he fro m it I tried to forget it was near here only 90 years ago these natives ate their last missionary A bulbul began bulbuling in the breadfruit overhead It stopped & there was only the far surf breathing & the two of us

Mis-e-ter yalo vinaka He groped for English police a war you name a? E-ro-la i said what's yours?

He muttered something cave-deep & gruff no way i could repeat it Should i try standing But now his arms flew wide & shaking hands?

You wait a fora hussy? and gestured at the road Toot toot?

His eyes went back to my feet I told him i'd just been swimming in the crater falls was on my way back to the guesthouse in the port He dug some of that perhaps but threw out a huge chest Wy you no?made swimstrokes & waved at the lagoon & tried Swim back by sea? i filled in against a steady wrinkling of sepia forehead to tell him i'd been snorkeling all week just for the fun but got rolled on the coral & the port doctor warned me off reefs till the sores healed but then today i'dBrows furrowed But he'd lost me near the start mouth muscles agonized like walnuts he bent over me to find the right sounds Yeara ow mucha yeara you?

Sixty-five i said & fingered it For the first time Me! he nodded his tall pompom he smiled me too sickyfi'!

That spark had leaped the wordgulf We we re egged o n far side a Hawaii I learned he'd even heard of Canada tho ugh he'd been born in the rooster's village my lord i thought he's only one generation I began pulling on my sox from Cannibal King Thakembau & asked him if he'd been as far as Suva His busby shook Sa sega No alia rima here

21

He looked more proud than sad With a mahogany finger then he made an airy circle You? You go rowna wore/a?

Jo i said & felt ashamed He turned as if satisfied but swung back & flung out at last the real question

E-ro-/a

Yes

wata wrong a you feet?

I tried again & got nowhere This wasn't tourist country He'd never met a fullgrown man who went up the volcano without a boar-spear & swam in cold waterfalls & dived in the sea only to be looking But most of all he couldn't understand what hurt my feet And so he stood a statue of Melanic Power maroon cheeks under a storm of hair torso cicatriced with the darker scars of tribal rites endured a half-century ago a skirt of sorrel reeds & all mounted on two unfeeling pedestals of meat two tough sun-barbecued planksteaks of feet like those his cousins use across the bay on Benga to walk on white-hot stones for magic or for tourists

What's wrong my feet i said He laughed

is I not born here too

the only time with a solid flash of teeth Bussy come a some a time he said gently you be o rite He went padding swiftly up the trail Ni sa mothe Goodbye You a-rite now i called & lay back to wait the bus under the breadfruit tree.

22

R. D. Skillings

THE HOUSE IN THE DUNES The party, in a motel on the outskirts of town, into which they had been lured by the lights and a flute, appeared to be dying of lack of liquor. " This is not my scene," Barbara said, " not my scene at all." " Let's go back to Eddie's," Oswald said. " I couldn't," Barbara said, " I'm too tired to slee p, I' m too tired to do anything but keep going."

Eddie was sitting on the floor listening to a woman tell about an expedition through the Everglades on which her husband had almost been eaten by an alligator.

Others stood in the doorway in various phases of departure, though no one seemed actually able to leave. They went out, glanced at the sky, and came back in again. " Definitely not my scene," Barbara said, looking at the debris. "A ll these scruffy people with their sunburns." " Let's go back to Eddie's," Oswald said. ''I'm so bored, I hate it when I'm bored," Barbara said and went out and dove into the pool with her clothes on. Oswald stripped to his shorts a nd dove in after her.

She let him suck her nipples through the soaking jersey.

The manager of the motel appeared in his pyjamas. " Please, please," he whis pered, "are you guests here? It's three o'clock in the morning. You' ll wake everyone up."

They climbed out of the pool. Oswald went back to the party and got Eddie but Barbara disappeared. They sat in the car and waited for her. " Interesting specimen," Oswald said. He didn't know whether he wanted to ma ke love to her or not, he didn't think it mattered what he did. He was staying at Eddie's house in the woods fo r the solitude, so he could start his second novel. The first was no good, and he wondered if he had the nerve for another. He had in two weeks sharpened a pack of pencils, smoked a lot of pot, and sat in the sun . Des pair ran behind him like a thin angry dog.

Barbara appeared and got in the back seat. " Let's go to Sasha's," she said. " Their parties go all night." " I want to go home," Eddie said.

23

" I wa nt to see Sas ha, he's gorgeous," Barbara said, 'Til walk if I have to." " I don't care," Oswald said and Eddie shrugged and drove out of the parking lot and down the highway under the moon.

"You'll love these peo ple," Barbara said. "They're the most beautiful people in the world. Sasha had a very successful boo k about five years ago, it got rave re views. Wai t till you see his wife, s he's absolutely gorgeous, s he's his sixth, and she's got a seventeen-year-old daughter who's gorgeous too. And very promiscuo us I und ersta nd. You ought to go to bed with her, Oz." She leaned forwa rd suddenly and bit him on the sho ulder, then sat back out of reach. ·•t like to bite people," she said, " I like to bite people because I like to bite people.''

Oswald turned aro und and looked at her. ''I'm frigid," s he said. "This is the way I get my kicks."

He turn ed front again . ''I'm s po ntaneous," she said . " I do what I want to do when I want to do it. But not until."

They turned off the highway onto a track that went into the dun es. The headlights s howed no blade of grass, no shrub or tree, only hills of sand to the horizon like a desert. In the distance a ho use was blocked o ut aga inst the s ky. ''That's where they live," Barbara said. "They have their parties in the pit, you' ll see in a minute ... " The road went up sharply, the wheels spun, the land fell away, asphalt replaced gravel, and the car raced jo uncing to the summit and parked beside the house .

A plum-colored missile-shaped sports car wa ited in the s hadows. Far below white surf burst on a lo ng beach. ··somebody's got some mo ney," Eddie said. ''Oh Sas ha's rich," Barbara said, "rich, rich! Wouldn 't it be nice!"

The hi II o r w hatever it was, Iike a butte it now a ppeared, a kind of geological freak, seemed to dominate the region . Nothing was visible in any direction.

Barbara went ahead of them toward the far s ide where a stee p path led do wn .

A ho use like a toy ho use stood in a fai nt light at the bottom of the pit. Vo ices drifted up a nd peo ple we nt in and o ut of the doorway. " Look at all the stars!" she cried a nd ran down the path, and Eddie and Oswald followed.

It was like descending into a volcano . They went dow n and the walls rose around them. There was not a breath of air, it was hot. By the time they reached the bottom Barbara was inside the ho use.

A woman said, dwell ing o n the consonance, " Barbara, Barbara Barnaby! How dreadfully nice' What are you doing here?" " I heard you were having a party," Barbara said, sounding young and uncertain. " How dreadfull y nice of yo u to come!" said the woman.

Just outside the d oor was a table with bottles of liquo r, brandies and wine, and Oswald and Eddie made th emselves a drink. Away fro m the ma in party two men

24

in the sand, disputing in low tones. Inside the house, a single unfurnished chamwith bare walls, four windows and one door, were a number of guests, all aply near the end of a long evening. Leaning in a window Oswald listened to woman explaining why she had changed her analyst. Eddie we nt inside and after a while Barbara came out and took Oswald to meet the two me n in the sand, o ne whom was a giant.

"Oz," s he said, "this is Howard Dimes, and Sasha." " We lcome ," said Sasha. He was huge, in canvas shorts, and burnt by sun.

"Oz's writing a novel," Barbara said. " He wants to go to bed with me." " What for?" Sasha said.

She looked bewildered, then hurt.

"What's it about?" Howard Dimes said. White-ha ired, with a languid manner and unscathed face, he was casuall y but elegantly dressed, and he gave off a faint odor of cologne.

"Original sin," said Oswald firmly. " I think he's a bit stupid," Howard Dimes said to Sasha.

Sasha belched without enthusiasm and drank deeply from hi s glass.

Howard Dimes examined Oswald. "You kn ow, Oz's go! something, I think," he said to Sasha. " Something contagious?" Sasha said.

"No, no," Howard Dimes murmured, "something physical."

"Oh," Sasha said, and began to laugh. " He's really rather pretty in spite of his stupidity," Howard Dimes said. " Is your book going to be any good?" " I doubt it," said Oswald. " What a useless point of view!" said Howard Dimes. "Why not?"

"Because 1," said Oswald, aware he was drunk, " lack zeal, courage, will, stamina, and grace." " A serious young man," Howard Dimes said to Sasha, " he aspires to pomposity." " He seems to want to be a saint," Sasha said in a bored voice, "or a boyscout." " Why have you left talent off your list?" asked Howard Dimes. " I haven' t," said Oswald. " That's grace, which I lack ." " But it must be won!" Howard Dimes said with exas peration.

Oswald felt out-maneuvered, and possibly wrong. " It depends on your theology," he said. " You may hope or not," Howard Dimes said . "Either way you must go on."

"Balls!" said Sas ha. " I have written seven novels and publis hed five and not one of them is worth a fuck." " Not true," Howard Dimes said with odd vehemence, " not true, not true."

Sasha shouted with laughter and rocked derisively in the sand. " Mostly one needs stamina, I think," Howard Dimes went on with unexpected earnestness. " And don't get attached to anything, not even life. Kee p your distance,

25

distance is clarity, and clarity is selfless. Love o nl y your art, and let the world suffe r around you, for it will. Never describe a character as constipated, and whatever yo u do don 't ge t married. That's absolutely fatal. I'd never get a word written if I had a wife and brats, or even a lo t of friends, for that matter. Look at Sasha here. How's it coming, by the way?" " What? I do n't know," Sasha muttered, glaring aro und. " Hello, Millie." " So you want to be a writer, e h?" hoarsely roared a haggard woman in a voluminous beige dress with green beads. She colla psed in the sand and smote Oswald o n the back with her ham of a hand, then glowered in his face. " I write the best Goddamned flower column you ever read," s he roared. " You want to be a wr iter, eh? Well good for you! We' re the best! Painters, what d'they kn ow".' Picasso, who's he'! We're the o nes who get the words out! What d'you think ha ppens whe n I' ve got a ho rrendo us hangover and a Goddamned deadline to meet? I meet the Goddamned deadline," she roared, and smote him on the back again . " I never missed a Goddam ned deadline in my li fe." " Millie, you' re drunk as a coot,'' Howard Dimes sa id. " You're Godd amned ri ght," Millie roared. '' I was a prisoner on Corregidor, the Ja ps let me tend thei r gardens, and I' ve bee n writing about flowers ever since. We wo n the war, I became a Buddhist, the world went to hell again, as usual, and now I' ve got to pee." She got up and wobbled toward the ho use. " We' re the best," she sho uted over her sho ulder, " we'r e the Goddamned best there is, and don't you forge t it."

After a mo ment Sasha stood up and looked aro und as if he too wanted to go somewhere but were not s ure why. "Do you wrestle?" he said finall y to Oswald. " No,'' said Oswald. " Do n't wrestle?" Sasha said sad ly. " How o ld d'yo u thin k I am'!''

Oswald figured forty. "Sixty," he said. " That's right," Sas ha said glumly, "sixty-two, but I'm stro ng as a lion .... " He began to tilt to the left wi tho ut, apparently, being aware of it, but at the last mo ment took a step sideways and a g ulp from his glass.

Howard Dimes said, " I've matched you dr in k for drink .... " "Balls," said Sas h a. " ... but I never get up," Howard Dimes finis hed, and leaned back o n his elbow. " I can drink," Sas ha said, losing his idea, then continued with convict io n, " I can.and will drink the whole pack of you into the gra ve."

"Sasha's in his heroic mood again," Howard Dimes murmured.

"Sasha, come and sit down," Barbara said, patting the sand bes ide her. " Sasha, come and sit down ," Sasha mimicked her. "Sas ha, don 't swim in the undertow; Sas ha, stop d rinking so much ; Sasha, sto p mak ing a foo l of yourself. I tell you, Howard, you're right about o ne thing, you're r ight about women. T hey won't let a man go to hell in his own way. T hey've got to love and console. And nothing in God's green garden moistens their diabolical little twats like what they

26

take to be human frailty ... frailty, my God!" concluded Sasha.

At that moment, without warning, the air was filled with insects.

Sasha swore, brushed at his face, and sat down in the middle of the swarm.

Oswald was bitten in several places at o nce. He jumped up and began flailing with both hands.

"The gnats that did in Dick Trelawney," said Howard Dimes. ''Who was he?" Barbara said, trying to tie a kerchief around her head. '' He was here one night," Howard Dimes said, "and he went for a walk in the dunes. We didn't find him until the next summer, or rather we found his bones."

"You're joking," Barbara said.

"People perish at Sasha's parties," Howard Dimes said. " What in hell are these bugs?" shouted Eddie, materi alizing from the dark. " Put up with them," Sasha said irritably, "or get back in the house with the others, where you belong."

"Sas ha," said Howard Dimes, "won't take an aspirin for a hangover."

"I love my little gnats," Sasha said drunk enly.

"And they love you," said Howard Dimes, on whom the gnats did not light, perhaps because of his cologne.

Sasha shivered, blinking his eyelids, then sat still, folded his hands in his lap like a woman, and looked at Oswald while the specks settled on his face.

There was a sound like tiny voices s hrieking and the hordes came. Oswald ran for the house, followed by Eddie and Barbara, and a shout from Sasha.

The house was full. "Hot in here," Eddie said. Someone handed Oswald a hash pipe, a drink, and a pill. Barbara appeared, panting and damp. " I went all the way to the top and looked at the ocean and came back," s he said.

"Cancer is the only obscene word left," said a man in a seersucker suit and sunglasses.

"Life is repetitious," said another.

'They have an arrangement," a woman said. " He paints stripes, she paints bull's eyes."

"She didn't want to die," a man remarked, " she merely wanted to kill herself."

"He's numb all over," someone said, "so you can drive na ils through him."

"Tell him, I shit on you from a great elevation," said the woman who had changed her analyst. "That's what your father used to say to me when he was annoyed."

"Did he?" said a boy with golden curls.

"Frequently," said the woman. ''There's something going on behind all this," Oswald said. "One day we'll wake up and everything will be different."

"You're blithering," Barbara cried, hugging him .

"Who's this guy Sasha?" said Oswald to the boy. "Can he write?"

"He's my step-father," the boy said. "I'm George, I just came home tonight.

27

neve r read anything he wrote, he's a horror, I hate his guts. " 路路rm so happy I could throw up," Barbara said. '' I think it's very pretty," remarked Howard Dimes. " It's too long," said Sas ha. " It makes him look like a girl." " Very pretty," said Howard Dimes, "very seductive. I advise you not to cut a loc k of it. " George, graceful and slender, s miled composedl y down at the two men who we re still sitting in the sand . The gnats were gone, tho ugh Oswald, who was by no means sober, thought he might have imagined them. He was, h~ noticed , back in the sand himse lf, having left the house with the idea of finding a place to lie down and slee p.

"You'd better have it cut by noon tomorrow," Sasha said. " I shit on you from a great elevation," said George.

Sas ha sat and said nothing. " I shit on you from a n even greater elevation," George said in his precise prep school voice. " Ins ults! Insults fro m everyone, even the whelp of my whore!" Sasha said heavi ly. ''Now you must wrestle." ''I've been waiting fo r you to say that ever since I arrived," said the boy. " Bravo!" cried Howard Dimes. ''Up with you both! Everyone deserves something. Oswald here's a theologian, Sasha's a lio n, and Geo rge .. . George will slay wome n I predict." He leaned back on his e lbows, pre paring to enjoy the spectacle.

Sasha rose and crouched as George darted at his ankles, trying to trip him.

"Whelp of my whore," Sas ha said, fending him off with one hand. They locked arms, bro ke off and locked arms again . Suddenly George wrenched free , threw Sasha flat on his face, and pinned him with a hammerlock. There was no sound but the sound of breathing.

Oswald stood up, appalled .

"A s ham," said Howard Dimes. " What a sham!"

And in another instant Sasha had sprung up, thrust the boy above his head and hurled him into the sand , where he lay as tho ugh dead.

"A nd still champion," said Howard Dimes derisively.

George rose to o ne knee, shaking the sand from hi s ha ir, acce pting his defeat gracefully, as if it didn't matter, but Sasha shadowboxed in a c ircle, his sho ulders gleaming with sweat. "Come o n," he said to Howard Dimes. " Yo u know I never get up," said Howard Dimes, greatly amused .

"You?" Sas ha said to Oswald, who sat down abruptly.

"I wa nt someone to wrestle with," Sasha said dismally, but when still no o ne came forward he dro pped to his hands and knees and began baying at the moon.

He put back his head and howled like a dog.

The sound we nt up in the de ad airless heat. Everyone was s ilent, even Howard Dimes. Sasha went on howling, preposterous and sad, but succeeding nevertheless, by some gesture exaggerated to parody, in suggesting that all this was merely a show,

28

fantastic cynical c harade, offered to, or rather flung at, his guests, by one who, nding his present state, had done fine things in the past, and would do things again some day.

It stopped. Sasha got up, panting, and started up the path.

"Sasha, Sasha, where are you going?" a woman called from the house. " I'm going to take a little drive," Sasha said. " Wh y?" the woman said . ''Where?"

"For no reason," Sasha said. "Nowhere."

"You could lie down for a while. You could take a nap."

"What s ho uld I want to take a nap for?'' " Please," the woman said. "Oh, Sasha, please." " I want to take a little drive," he muttered slyly. He went up out of sight, reappeared as he re ached the top, swaying agai nst the sky, and raised one hand , but Oswald couldn't tell whether it was a wave or an attempt to keep his balance.

In a minute a powerful engine raged to life, a pair of headlights scraped the sky, s lid down the horizon, and vanished.

Oppressed, Oswald went in search of Barbara and Eddie. The party seemed to have increased its pace, and the guests had begun to dance, writhing at o ne another like fake Negroes.

As they started up the path Howard Dimes and George were still reclining in the sand and did not acknowledge their departure. When they reached the highway to town Eddie pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

"George invited me to go horseback riding with him on the beach tomorrow at midnight," Barbara said, putting her chin forward on Oswald's shoulder. " I' ve always wanted to be the mistress of a father and son at the same time."

But in front of them, at the end of a long flat , floating closer in the headlights of a stopped pickup truck, was something odd. They bore down on it in ghostly silence.

The plum-colored sports car had hit a parked bulldozer. Sighing, Eddie pulled up at the side of the road, and after a mute momen t they got out. The driver of the pickup truck, a boy in clean coveralls, came to meet them. '' I hope it's no one you know," he said.

Eddie stayed with the boy and Oswald drove Barbara back into the dunes.

"The fool ," Oswald said, "he must have fallen aslee p at the wheel."

"Oh that was no acc ident," Barbara said, "that was no acc ide nt."

Oswald smiled with bewilderment. Nothing was clear to him except that life was uncerta in and the dead world groaned with unwritten books.

"I loved him," Barbara said. As they drove into the parking lot she started to moan, clasping her arms across her belly and rocking back and forth in the seat.

Oswald stared at her with horror, to see if this anguish were real. "Was he any good?" he asked, as if the answer might give meaning to death.

But Barbara, who did not care, was already out of the car and running for the

29

pit. Oswald followed . Halfway down a woman stumbled by him in the dark, going up.

Reaching bottom he took a bottle fro m the table and sat in the sand, watching the ho use w here the party sped o n un perturbed . He drank sadly and bravely, mo urning for Sasha and wondering how to get ho me, but he was no longer sure where the path was. When he turned his head his eyes saw o nl y walls of sand.

He must have dozed o r d reamt, time had gone awry, the house was locked, he was alone, the sky was alight, and the sun, which had been approaching all ni ght, fl ared on the blacke ned hills.

30

FALL INTO GRACE

The ocean is a turmoil of waves, waves trying to climb the backs of other waves and breaking in clouds of foa m in t he effort.

Nature has taken everything o ut of o ur ha nds and we do not know whether to swim o r fly.

We are cast out of the mo uth of a cave.

Sto nes pile up behind us.

Each contains eno ugh food fo r a week.

With water they combine the un iverse.

Small sto nes underfoot sweet wi th life, whole cliffs practic ing heights, suddenly remembered sto nes and those given at birth Whe n we die we fall amo ng them like rain.

31

Dana Naone DARK MOON

I.

Trees sense water.

Even the wood in houses puts o ut new roots fo r it.

A black lake surro unds us.

The water is rising all the time.

It is alread y past o ur knees.

The moon is like a shi p that leaves land with the last light of the world in its hull.

II.

The refrain of an o ld song dri fts through the window.

Someone recites a tho usand reasons.

The wind betwee n the branches of a tree coaxes the moon lo we r.

Ill.

Eyelids close over eyes like garage doors pulled down over still running cars.

Smo ke a nd the smell of gas fill the room.

Dreams announce themselves over the r adio.

The white kno b of the gear shift makes a small moon in the dark : its surface tr ans lucent as the bald head of a cr ystal ba ll, a fine ly polished skull of memori es and predi ctions.

Passing a hand o ver it creates an eclipse.

We can not remember who we are.

The darkn ess extends ten feet underground.

32

rd Kubo DEATH OF THE HORSE

His dung glows; soft light In the blue blades deep Star light moon light Captured as in tulips sealed On edges of the pond Proud horse.

Even in death your soft gallop Strikes cleanly.

IN THE RAIN

I.

In the rain and the dark The stark poles whisper A bug inches his way up The s lanting cable.

2.

I am here in the marsh Gathering electricity My hands outspread Not to the Pace Electric Company But to the turtles Suddenly raising their heads.

33

Leonard Kubo ROADSIDE GRAVEYARD, WAIHE E TOWN

l.

I s it in the graveyard Beside your tombstone.

The c haracters, these windswept locks Summoned me aga in.

Now I am gazing at your face Through the bamboo networks.

2.

In Shangha i a man uses identical keys T o turn the wheels of a strange machine.

The gold moon s lowly rises.

I want to fal l into the soft reeds Dying suddenl y, amo ng the stones Alone, finally, with you, The mocki ngbird that whistles in my ear.

34

MULLET FISHERMAN

Two wooden high chair s etc hed wit h moss float on the green sea.

At low tide, ji ichans make love with long bamboo po lesspineless urchins lie bare o n the reef like drowned dreams, and a s ilver fish trims like a rainbow over the reflection of their white beards.

FROM HERE

I peer through the fourth floor window.

The distance yo u span, on your way to Kuykendall Hall, Covers the length of my hand.

As you t hread beyond my fingertips, you tilt your head forward into th is contino us wind.

Your black hai r streams like the tra ils of a breaking wave.

TRADE WINDS

On this over-cast day I feel I am swe pt into the Pali Cliffs.

I can only rise to become a c loud.

If I look forward, there is Honolulu ; A nd I realize I can never go back to that windward g irl.

I am not alone -there are other dark brothers.

We hover arm in arm : What ties us together is o u r desire That a wind will lead us to sea.

35

Cynthia Sa POEMS ADAPTED FROM THE C HI NESE OF PIN HSI N

I.

Autumn deepens Red seeps into leaves.

II.

Ice as solitary as mountains Mountains flowing as water; Can the poet Thus compose the m?

Ill.

The sound of strings nears The blind man is here.

The sound of strings fades ...

Has the innocent's fate followed it too'?

IV .

Twilight ... midnight ; Fierce wind under the elm Drizzle on the vine May I stop you awhile?

My ailing brother Just e ntered his dreams.

V.

The water flows east To the west the moon sets.

PoetCan your ins piration Detain them a moment?

36

Harold Yoshikawa FLIGHT INFORMATION

gently tucking your feet under you strings of light glide from the center, the Airport never sleeps, it slowly flickers.

Late at night the clea ners come rolling up the floors collecting the Earth Dust. the wing feathers loosen, oxygen s preads around your arrow shell, then recedes floating in star's breath.

R apid Eye Moveme nts the bird turns over her egg once more warming the other side.

37

Earl Cooper

IN SALMON RUN I don't know why Edenshaw cut the motor. He just reached over and shut it off and sliced all the noise out of the bay. Edenshaw was a lways doing crazy things like that and never explaining why. That's one of the things I liked about him.

The town lay on the rim of the bay. It was a ghost town no w. And Edenshaw's mother had screamed him into life here. A lifet ime ago. Here in the vi llage perched at the timber's edge on a belt of cut-grass and fern o n the burp of the sea.

Salt air quickly and invis ibly ate the color from the houses. Leaving them at the feet of the drift to look like drift. Their gently bleached faces and shingles glowing like new linen in the sun.

A green and white sti ll shot. F/16 full into the su n. And we slid slowly toward the barnacled wharf. With the t imbers of the wharf also standing in crisp sil houette against the green. Edenshaw was transfixed o n the shore. His arms across his knees, his chin upon the bridge of his arms.

Neither of us s poke. As we drifted toward the poem of s hore. The shore and the wind blowing its greenness. And somet hing waiting. Even during the lulls in the wind when there's so much to be heard.

Jhere was a pool hall up the street. Actually it was a saloon. The first and on ly saloon in Salmon Run. With swinging doors. Swinging doors molting their rusty skins of ghost town paint. The saloon was aligned with its small family of cousin shops and offices. All zippered to the brown furrow of the street by plank sidewalks.

The planks were eaten a nd starved. There was little left of them now. And they fell through every few feet. Like dried bones. But we went romping and crashing and laughing down the rotten wood sidewalks. And quit them for the street where they were grown over with blackberry and devil's club. Taken over as a totem carven in an ancestor's name is claimed by the mossy pelt of its heritage.

"You think it's all inevitable?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Yes. Of course. Inevitable."

We walked in the street. Edenshaw had his hands in his jacket pockets. We a lmost missed seeing the saloon and the pool tables. I was watching him flow through the town . Slow striding the ce nter of the street. Stopping, and turning full circles, then starting out again.

38

"Hey, you got someplace in mind, Eden?" " Not sure. There's a map somewhere inside my head . If I can just find it."

The saloon was o n our left. There were wide front wi ndows with their bottom halves stained green and the curta ins missing from their curtai n rods. " Hey, look at that," I called to Eden.

His eyes gathered up the saloon. Its pl ank cheeks sanded with precision and refinished in pastels of grey and magnesia. T he crown of a third story perched falsely under the green wi ng of the forest. Edenshaw was smiling, and his smile broke into a run, "Com'o n." And we raced for the sidewalk, lea ping and falling through the tired boards like a pa ir of clowns. Laughing and pointing at each other.

Then came another of Edenshaw's inventions. He stood brushing himself with great exaggeration. He adjusted an imaginary hat and saunte red thro ugh the swinging doors like he was a gentleman gambler off to have his night of draw and stud and whiskey.

I followed him in. The town tough. Shoulder-back chin-thrust, ramming the gates ope n with my chest. Packed with tight jaws, fists , and mock arrogance.

We went in a nd out half a dozen times. Buffooning. Entertaining each o ther with cari cature. Each time presenting a new member of the town. The judge, all wide coat and cigar as hes. A pa ir of dry loggers, busting for beer. I did the mayor. Easing in. Punch ing sho ulders and pumping hands and ha iling foes across the room. Ninetyproof politics.

Edenshaw laughed, waved, and suddenly slumped aga inst the bar. For a minute he braced himself there, mumbling, before he staggered across the floor. He misjudged the distance and pushed empty space where the doors should have been. His body plunged headlong, hung there swinging, fell back, and finally cras hed out to the sidewalk. He was doing his father.

I waited for him to come back inside. The saloon was crowded now. Elbows and splashing glasses and the leather-handed seiner crews and lumberjacks making it with the dance girls. While an intense voltage of smo ke and gusty talk inst.Hated the whole room from any other reality. Then Edenshaw was there, a grip on my arm. He steered me to the bar, and went around to face me from the other side.

I watched him in the yellowed mirror. His hand beneath the bar, entering the s helf, wrapping round the neck of a dust-powdered bottle, leading it patiently. All the time.his eyes o n me. Placing it o n the counter between us, his other ha nd fishing up a beer mug with a chip out of its mouth and a spiderweb growing inside.

Edenshaw cleaned and polished the mug with his jacket. He huffed on it, and wiped away his fog. Then he set it beside the bottle.

I had a half-dollar in my pocket. I took it out and touched it to the bar. The half-dollar trilled, completed a s hort ballet, and lay flat. Edens haw picked it up and put it in my hand which he held in his hand. He grinned at me.

"Drink?" he said.

"Thanks, friend. Don't mind if I do."

39

The cork had bee n awaiting Edenshaw's fingers. It crumbled, and fell back to its so urce. Some went down the bottle, but the wine was still good. Strong and s mart and good. With flecks of cork in it. We took turns sipping and pouring from the long green bottle.

Edens haw. Living for that long in a hollow tree outside the Stanford student unio n. And stretching his ears to pia no music. Going to whatever classes invited his fee lings. Courtesy of a giant scho larship for minorities. And his bookshelves full of booksfull of Hemingway and Joyce. And qu art bottles. Hig h-backed chairs and talk and the incense of his feathered past. Traveling and camping in the distanceless lengths of night. " I stood on the rock. Part of the rock. And my father cocked across the clear water. His spear poised like a mirror of mine. Waiting. Waiting for the enduring Chinook and the Coho. (Edens haw refilled the mug.) And my father's voice came hushed and exc ited. T ell ing me, 'The j ack-salmon comes. He passes in fr ont of you.

There. There! Spear it! Spear it! ' And my arm kicking out with the shaft to enter where the salmon would be."

We were sile nt for a long time. Speaking with our eyes. Until my eyes caught the pool table. And I studied it with care . Its reflectio n etched into the mirror behind my friend .

It must have been full of colo r then. T ight green cushio ns and slapping balls.

But it didn 't have any color now. A pet rifaction. Colo r and life leached away. A true ghost pool table. The window's pale green sun cooling the sacchari ne wood a nd gathering in the torn fe lt.

"Com'on," Edenshaw whispered .

We could find only six balls. The eightball among the m. And one cue, long divorced from its tip. Some of the pockets were gone. But th at was all right. We played a thousand games. And drank of the wine . And occasio nally a ball would fa ll through a pocket, thud to the floor, .and go ro lling from the table. But that was all right, too.

Edenshaw sat at a n oval poker table. His elbows resting o n the embracing arms of his chair. His eyes on the cei ling, yet not seeing the ceil ing. Focusing o n an ancie nt, just discovered spider-laced film . An hereditar ily projected pattern .

I crouched with the pool stick in half-stroke. Watching him. Eden was due for new chips. He knew it too. " Wa nna go look around some more, Eden?"

He jockeyed the wine bottle, ro lling it on its base with slow pendulum swings.

"Yes. I would," he finally said.

We walked down the street. The wooden zippers smiling like o ld mo uths gone dry. And there were houses now, spaced out as wrens on a limb. I followed some

40

steps behind, seeing Edenshaw feel his childhood. Feel its reality push its fantasy against his memory.

It's rather like going from here to Katmandu. Which means there will be great crossings of strange paths. No one simply finds a road. The road must be built. You do it every day. And bridges along the prime road must be firm and well laid. Know it or not. Your road and all its sidetracks lie foretrod within your head. Which is why searching differs from finding.

The blackberries were ripe. They hung in thick, grape-sized clusters. The Himalayas and Evergree ns were advancing. Their barbed wire feelers arching with patience. To bridge, engulf the town. To digest every cinnamon -fl aked oil drum, fence-less front gate, and crumbling frame. An ything which stood slowly.

Edenshaw stopped. There was a set of walls stuck like a decaying molar amid the a lder and vi nes. Coveted by th e cedar-warm forest, where whispers were swallowed by the moss and shadows. The charred she ll of a structure. The roof a crisp black with its shoulders collapsed on the white upper story. The windows with their crossword puzzle panes shattered like broken c hords.

Edenshaw waded thro ugh the growth to the front door. A sharp sound came to him from wi thin. He turned his ear to the door. It was the sound of pain, pai n breaking in sudden gasps. His mother's screams. Extremely lo ud now. Igno ring the wood and linoleum . And r ipping off the side of Edenshaw's head. He lurched into the house and ran gutknot down the shrunken hallway. H is mo ther's screams abruptly toppling into rhythmic moans.

Edenshaw saw them fro m the doorway. His mother on the quilts covered with blood. Wads of ve rmilion sheet gnarled in her youn g fists. She was so young. And Edenshaw's fat her grey and shaggy beside the bed. A long gleaming bottle raised bottom-up to the bulb in the ceiling. After a long pull he lowered the bottle and poured the liquid over his hands. Letting it slosh him to the e lbows. He was smiling.

And he sang to her wi th the rhythm of her moaning as he held her legs wide. Leaning close, he coaxed the ball of flesh issuing from her body.

"You're havin' a boy. A boy. Yo u're havin' a boy baby. He's coming. He's com in' o ut fine. Aaaiiiiii, no!" His voice scratched to a stop. Then in slow, measured breaths he to ld her, "You were having two, child. One's not ali ve."

Edenshaw fell thro ugh the doorway in slow motion, with great effort. His arms outstretching, pulling him fo rward. T o the bed.

It was dusk whe n my friend came o ut from his house. Came walking across the gray-lit yard. Walking thro ugh mercury. His head lifted to the treetops. And I watched him inhale the mountains.

He pulled me to him and embraced me with cordwood arms.

"Com'on. We' ll go now," he said, nearly inaudibly.

And we passed through the town without speaking. Hearing the crickets and frogs and stars. The moon was high when we reached the wharf.

41

Michael Among

The white horse of the old chinese graveyard He leads his herds of clouds into a lagoon An arc her rides on the back fitting arrows One arrow hits the tombstone of a princess She awakens in the arms of a black jade throne And the peacocks fly over red leaves chasing fireflies And she begins to play her flute to the dragon vase A cold wind blows pear blossoms over rough walls She hears an old man picking tangerines from marble And sees him dangling at the end of a rope The archer sits on a boulder near a pile of horse shoes Laughing he says to the old man what happened to the bucket He shakes his head on the edge of a cliff And the concubines scream when he snickers He gallops off in surprise at the swaying of silk The bottom of her robe opens and her white thighs spread out on snow The princess knows how to use her glances when gathering stones His long mane trailing and his hoofs leave her trampled in the palace

42

for glenn

The pregnant man has words He hears the sound of a wo man After lightning in the mountains The stro ng wind shakes loose the sto nes in th e bo ulder The wo man he carries suffers fro m w ine T he o ld m an wears the roo t of a sto ne The ma n of words breathes under grass Waiting for the moon to cross the ricefields Below the s lope the child w ithdraws the blad e The woman s inks in when f ire cleans the soil T he stars o n the long ro pe move the bucket in the well The c hild remains in the ra in covered with bamboo leaves He cannot rest when the wind slee ps o n c liffs With her s lippers left o n the o ld Pali road The rain stops and she hurries to the templ e Lig hts three candles in fro nt of a bamboo swo rd With the willow branch he strikes the ox into m ud The c hild lags behind with heavy bundles of flowers

43

Audrey Sakihara ONSEN K EEPER

ojiisan ! ojiisan. where is he now a scoop of rice cools I wash the bowl and wait four years behind blackened windows and yellow light the swords are rusting and the cranes have flown away.

I can hear him calling down the lane tadaima! okaerinasai.

SUMMER

I've been away a long time.

I come at supper and faces Only turn as hands ho ld on to spoons.

The curtains I've always drawn are pulled back Filling my room with brightness.

I reach for the cord and see the shower tree branches And lo ng grass slo ping down to Manoa stream.

How lo ng have I have been gone.

44

Robert Lamansky TANTALUS i've always hiked this trail past squashed guavas and thimbleberries surprising me in different places birds with long thin tails stacks of cut back stalks and white ginger i turned and put one in your hair your lo ng tan sweating up the trail you said you'd never seen mountains li ke this but they rose from the ocean you should have known i too was born in water

45

Emi Ishii MAKIKI PUMPING STATION

It is nearl y dusk. The day's li ght withdraws

In to a circle at the ho rizon . On torn notebook Pages, your thick black words: " An occasional twinge comes . . . a reminder of the body's Superior wisdom. But I o nly limp In the morning, follo wing dreams."

Silence gathers in crippled distance.

People drop away fro m me like dry Petals--old friends, lovers-an autumnal calendar.

Shadow spores begin to sprout Around me, and the last Cardina ls, feeding on s mall grass grains.

46

VIET CONG WOMAN

The jungle frees you li ke a nightmare in bloo m With ra inwashed footprints you sta lk me so deftly, so muffled I begin to doubt you exist Yo u mean to kill me But oh I want to live with you I want to touch your hands and d ance and cr y, really cry and sing to flowers and fuck you in the water like whales fuck

47

C. E. Poverman

TH E ELECTRIC DR ESS Royal said it was urgent, she had to talk to me, she was breathless and secreti ve o n the pho ne fro m Des Mo ines, she'd gone hom e to get some things, s he was leaving for C hicago as soon as s he hung up, but she j ust had to talk to me. If she co uld talk to me, everything mig ht be d ifferent.

Okay, o kay, I sh rugged, I' ll just be s itti ng here hav ing a pitcher, and handed the phone back across the bar. I hadn't even known s he was gone. I crossed the empty bar, put some Aretha on the jukebox- The House That Jack Built , Chain of Fools, I Say A Little Prayer-and sat back dow n over my pitcher fu ll of cold wi nter sunlight at the window. J ohn was c leaning a few glasses. T he o ld ma n who was always there was alo ne and mi nd ing his bus iness at the end of the bar. T he place was s hadowy li ke a boarded-u p thirties da nce palace-chill y drafts in the corn ers, laug hter and cadence of dancers' feet absorbed and secret in wood da rkening with age.

I wan ted to walk o ut, but I kept on sitt ing, drinking pitchers. I'd been drinking fo r a few wee ks.

O uts ide, the street was bri ght wit h the brief wi nter s unl ight, d irty snow piled in froze n mo unds like s pattered s lag along the curbs. T he sun was touc hing the tops of the peach-colo red dupl ex across the street. In a while it would d ip down below the roof, reappear in the alley between t he two ho uses; the f ire esca pe would become a black burning sta irway goi ng no place, holding sq uare s uns. I knew how the sun moved o n this street.

I'd sto pped going to sc hool. I'd gotten a job. I'd quit the job. It was too cold to wor k outs ide. It was the time of the Lady-Who-Made-Me-M iserable. Le ila. I couldn't stand to see her . I couldn 't stand not to see her. I'd come to a sto p in Rosa's Beer Garden.

Fo r a whi le I had believed: I'll break out, I'll ma ke it with some other chicks, then I' ll be free. But the great God of Consc ience fo rbid it. I was soft as putty every time . T he gi rls would comfort me. It's just a passing th ing. Sure. Girls can be real nice about that, tho ug h it would make me nauseous. We'd lie in bed in the afternoon, o ur breaths steam ing u p the wi ndows, and we'd talk, real friend ly and open a nd easy the way we might not have if we'd made love. It had been like that wit h Royal a coupl e of mo nths ago.

It was while we were lyi ng in bed that she had to ld me how it was goi ng to be

48

back in hi gh schoo l. The three o f them had pledged eterna l loyalty to eac h other: Clare, Marie, and Royal. That was fres hman year. The plan was that after g radu ation they wou ld get an apartment of one enormous room, and they would paint the room white . They would keep bottles filled wi th colored water an d marbles in va ri ous places. Windowsills. Though I imagined the roo m w it hout w indows. And t here would be a bathtub, an old o ne with squat legs, pe rhaps, if they were lucky, with curling toes on them , and the bathtub would be painted like the room, white on the outs ide. The inside wou ld be orange. Flat o range. I never asked if it wou ld be connected o r if anyone would eve n take baths in it. The plan was that one of them would work four mont hs a year while the ot her two did just w hat they wanted- pa inted o r maybe d id some weavi ng o r wrote poems o r just slept. Then they'd altern ate . Eight months o ff, four months on. I wis h I'd tho ught o f that, myse lf. I didn 't ask Roya l how muc h they'd be making. I guess enough. They would die not later than twentysix. That was a little muc h. But I sti ll liked it. .. Die wit h a c igarette still b urn ing between my fingers," Royal said lying in bed bes ide me. I tried to think if I'd seen that in a movie. I was sure I had. I was sure she had. But I liked it, anyway. A s we ta lked , the room was growing dark. It was o nly a little after four. We pulled the covers up and were wa rm.

Roya l told me C lare had had a baby at fifteen which went into the state ho me for adoption. Then, shock therapy. Royal said Clare couldn 't remember muc h about that yea r or the years before . You could ask her, but Clare was always vague. Royal warned me not to look into Clare's eyes. Later, in fact, I did. Lovely brow n eyes with clear black di Iat io ns around the pupi I. I would have loved it if somethin g incredible and myster ious had happened when I looked into Clare's eyes. Not hing did. Sitting at a crowded table in the unio n one winter afternoon, I saw her look away and fog them into a dullness. Someone had just made a lo usy joke about getting knocked up. C lare took a deep drag o n he r cigarette and stared out thro ugh the smoke at the black river covered w ith blades of broke n ice. I wanted to give her a hug, but I didn't. I guess her body's memory of the baby was a little deeper than the shocks could go.

Royal was con vinced Clare had occu lt powers. Clare had seduced Mar ie's boyfriend--one Marie wanted to marry. Marie still wouldn 't talk to C lare. T hat would have made it toug h li ving in o ne white room. Clare had a lso seduced sever al of Royal 's boyfriends, but each time, Royal and Clare had made it up. The wh ite room had been taken care of even before they'd finished high school- wh ich Roya l almost didn't fini sh, anyway.

The three used to cut sc hool quite a bit. You might have said it was their way.

One day in the middle of senior year after they'd phoned in their sick excuses, Clare and Royal had been fooling aro und in downtown Des Moines, perhaps Royal imagining s he was Barbra Strcisand sw inging dow n Broadway in some mus ical, when a photographer had sto pped and asked them if they were coeds from Drake. Oh, yes! Drake College! Whe n they'd appeared in the Des Moines Register

49

with their names s pelled correctl y, Royal and Clare cheek to cheek before the windy expanse of a Des Moines street and department store, Royal's swept-up arm taking in the whole world, laughing, the principal, who'd bee n looking for just such a thing to pin o n them, lea ped up in glee and expelled them both. Even tually, he'd wanted to get rid of them more th an keep them o ut of college . So, Drake, for real this time.

And then a transfer to the big state university.

Ahh, I hadn't even tho ught abo ut Royal since that afternoon. Too busy drinking. And collecting my Welfare. Twice a mo nth . A nd foodstamps in two different counties. I suppose I could have gone o n working as a carpenter, making th e molds for the concrete they were pouring on a new wi ng of the psych ward, but then it got too cold, man , I just don't like working in the cold. Anyway, when that psych ward started tak ing s hape, and I saw how thick they were pou ring the walls, and then one day stood inside in the frozen blue gloom of the concrete shell earl y in November, I tho ught, maybe leave a secret opening, here?, but I suddenl y got this feeling, no, no, I don't wa nt to drive na ils to help them build this damned thing. So I quit and went o n we lfare . By then it was cold!

I was in the middle of another pitcher whe n Royal's lime green VW-the color o f clo uded ice over a stream-sped into the street, s kidd ed and swe rved slightl y on t he icc. She overshot the parking place. Her long brown hair wh ipped around as she backed up. A second later she was walking quickly across the frozen street. The be ll o n the door jangled as s he stepped in, looked around, saw me, and smiled uncertainly-as I thought then. As I' ve come to think of it now, perhaps bravely. She stood in the door, her eyes bright blue from the cold, but more likely from the amphetamines she insisted were not amphetamines, b ut diet pi lis. He r eyes were the color milk would be if it were blue, ye t also, bright , the way the sky is ove r Iowa o n freezing days in winter. Her eyes reminded me of the int e r st at e~ight y-the open ness of all night dr ives to Chicago on speed and acid to get to the city with the sun coming up beh ind it , just in time to turn arou nd and dri ve home. He ll, you didn't have to look at her eyes to see that. There were the rusty dents all over her car. She had all of the s pace a nd e nergy of the interstates, but really no place to go.

Fro m the way she was loo king, maybe I was w here she had to go.

She stood there with her hands in the pockets of her coat~ven in her winter coat, you could sec her breas ts beneath, her blue j eans start ing belo w the knee of the coat, and then her green suede cowboy boots with the nervous white dried waterstains around th em like receded highwater marks.

"Get another glass. I got a pitcher goi ng." Then I surprised myself. ''I was getting kind of low drinking alone." She gave me a big smile, very certain this time. She unbuttoned her possum fur collar. I did love that. A possum fur collar. " H ey, never mind, sit down, I'll get it. J o hn , another glass." I gave her some change for the jukebox. She went over a nd began to press butto ns. The thud of electricity. Ever y Streisand record o n the jukebox.

When I came back, she was settled on my s ide of th e booth, her cowboy boots

50

neatly beside the seat, her coat hanging up. She wore a heavy black sweater. " Your face looks thin. You're no t taking care of you rself."

"Sure I a m. I'm warm and ins ide all day long. O ut of the elements a nd taking it easy." " Yo u do n't take me se rio usly. Yo u're so handsome, but yo ur face is grey as as hes. Look at the circles under your eyes." " Funny, I'm trying to get a good solid fourteen hours of slee p a ni ght. If you know any way of sleeping longer short of dying, tel l me, qu ick. I sho uldn't have circles under my eyes." " You do." " You don't. Yo u look just beautiful. Wh y are you go ing to C hicago?"

She fi shed up the sil ve r Star of David from o ut of her sweater and began to teethe o n the po ints. The s ilver clicked aga inst her teeth. It was something she always did whe n we drank beer. She wasn't Jewish. She was C hoctaw Indian and Bo hemian.

Her unc le worked on the railroad . Her father drove a truck. Her mother had kept track of the days of the month when it wou ld be safe for her in high school. At forty her fec undity would have thickened with gravity and booze-you could sec fa int lines j ust starting beneath the bridge of her nose and mo ving o ut toward the corn ers of her mouth . Just shad ows. She wo uld wo rk in a truckstop. It was n't the face of a Jew. None of that tense metaphys ical suffering. T he shadows were on th e face, not beneath it. But she'd been in love with a J ewish boy in high school and so conve rted .

The s ilve r cha in hung down into her black sweater and qui vered as she worked t he star aro und in her mouth. " I' m goi ng to get a job." ''What abo ut school?"

"That's what my fat her said." " We ll?" " I got too far be hind. I shou ld have asked you to do me a couple of pape rs. You could have in no time . You're so damned smart. W hat're you do ing d rinking beer in here a ll alone every day?"

I shrugged. " How did you know?" " Even I could figure that out." " Is this the first place you tried?"

"First and o nly."

"G uess I have been here too lo ng." " Yo u're wastin g yourself. Why'd you quit?"

"Couldn't think anymore."

"That da mned bitc h! O h, I could j ust see how unh a ppy she was making you.

I watched your face when you were in here one night wit h her. You looked miserable.

Sick. All night. Goddamn it, why do you love a bitch?" " I didn 't plan it that way. She was n't when we started . I don't th ink. I do n't, anymore, a nyway ."

51

" The draft is going to get yo u, isn't it?" " ever mind.'' " Yo u' ll let yo urself get draft ed j ust like you've been letting yourself s it here; yo u' ll get killed in Vietnam."

"Come o n!" " I'm not in school, but at least I'm not goi ng to get drafted." " Look, you go o n back to your apartment over ther e on South Main Street. I'll he lp you do the pa pers. Yo u don't wa nt to e nd up being a waitress." " Mess ing around o n constructi on, you can't talk." ''I'll d ictate. Yo u ty pe . And I'm o n Wel fa re, now. An yway, I was a carpenter.

It's not like doing just labor." " A man like you on Welfare." She reached down to squeeze my stomach, but I do n't have o ne. Her ha nd touc hed my s kin. " No, you could s it and dr ink beer all day eve ry day and no t have a gut. Yo u' re just not th at kind.'' She sig hed. " I have o ne. Even with diet pills.'' She licked her lips, dry fro m the amphetamines and c iga rett es. Too k a swig of beer.

The s un was reappearing in the a lley, slanting into our eyes. In a few mo re minutes the black fire escape would burn squ are sun s. Then it wo ul d get shadowy on the street. The streetli ghts wo uld come on. That woul d be something else, altoget her: the midwestern winter nig ht with the great black emptinesses betwee n the ho uses at the e nd of the streets. All ni ght. '' If yo u had offered sooner to do the pa pers, I might have made it. But now I' ll use the time a nd mo ney to pay off my loans."

"Come on . We'll do them right now." " It's too late. I quit. And got rid of the apartment. I've go t to go to the bathroom, wa it a second." But she sat beside me. I ordered another pitcher. " I could n't get over how easy it was to quit. All those stupid entrance tests. Then I we nt to the registrars a nd s igned o ut like a hote l book o r som ething. No one even said, 'Good luck , Royal.' The secretari es went rig ht o n typing. Fi ve minutes and out. " She pulled on he r cow boy boots and walked wit h her head hig h to the ladi es' room. She's almost as tall as I am in her boots. And she has a lovely natural carri age. When she came bac k a nd saw me watching her, s he s miled. Lovely lady.

She started pus hing her c igarettes aro und on the table and messing wit h the Star of David in her teeth. She sang to the Streisand so ngs so that finally I asked her, " Look, w hat's the matter ?" " Ther e's a boy in C hicago and I g uess I'm going to stay with him. He's been a fter me a lo ng time. I said I would come."

"Good. It's better you stay with someone." " I know." " So?" " I'll get some little j ob. Oh, I know it would be better if I stayed wit h someone.

I want to stay with you."

52

··Me? Wh y meT ··Because I like yo u. That bitch's making you mi~e rablc . Everyone can sec that from yo ur face . But I cou ld make you happy. I know that.·· ''I don't sec he r a nymore."' ··we could li ve together. I'd cook t hings fo r you. Bake bread in a wood stove.

We could leave Iowa a nd go someplace warm where we can hea r the ocean. I'd get a piano and cou ld s ing Strcisand. I can make you happy. I just know it. I don't want to go to C hicago. I want to be here with you." " I didn't kn ow you cou ld play the piano. " "I can 't, but I've always wa nt ed to. l'lllearn. And you can be happy. l can make yo u happy.'' I looked at her milky blue eyes. I started thinking about li ving by the ocean. the ~ound o f the surf. Nights lying there wi th he r. The smell of bread baking. l was getting tired si tting by the window alone with my pitcher.

--w~,· could have such lovely ch ildren. Reall y."

"Yllu·rc kidding me?"

"Sec. you don't take me seriously."

"But l do! C hildn:n arc .. . a child is ... ve ry serious."

The ~ un wa~ below the fire escape. rolling clown between the two buildings in the alley. The ~ now washed o ut purple. Oh, God, the night was coming, the long midwestern night. January.

She was offering it all to me, but I just couldn't get myse lf to believe it. Or didn 't want to. She'd mess up like wit h her papers. She'd sleep late. the bread would burn, s he'd drive me crazy with the piano all day lo ng, she'd have no talent, she'd cry, s he'd need endless comfort ing, she'd forget to take her pills, I'd get her knocked up-if I could get it up. myse lf; then there would be gu ilt, the small hatred s would begin, grow, petty reve nges would take over, she'd start drinking, fucking everyone, stealing my meage r bread, she'd get up on her speed, drop too much acid, bum trip, disappear dri ving fo r days at a tim e on the interstates with her eyes bright a nd the sun ri sing into them, so mehow, no matter what, never bloodshot ; it would only be when s he was away driving that I might care fo r her. We'd take J anuary with us, wherever.

She was ho lding her breath , the star between her lips whe n I reali zed she'd land on her feet. "Nah, thanks, reall y, for caring about me, but I don't want to li ve with anyone. I've just been through it , you know , a nd well, you saw, it's got me so hung up I can't even screw anymore.''

"Oh, that was nothing. You were nervo us. I know what you can do. See, I'll givo: all that back to you." She crossed to the jukebox, stepping a round a small puddle of melted snow ncar the door. More Streisand. " I ca n't do it. Not now. Real ly." I knew s he'd want to bring her cats. She had cats all over her apartment; there was the fine acrid smell of cat pee under furniture and in corne rs. I suspected women who kept cats.

She looked into her beer glass and s ig hed. " I knew you wouldn't."

53

" What have you done with the cats?" " I gave two to C lare. And the nice Tom to my mother. Then I gave the Russian Blue to the people next door. I let the rest go. Wild, now. Damn! I hope they're getting eno ugh to eat." She drank off her beer. I poured her a nother. " This will be the last time I see you. " "Oh, you'll be back." " No, I'm going and then that will be it ; I'll be gone." I thought that was a little much, but didn't say anything. " I wish I could stay with you ." " In a way, I wis h you could, too. I mean if it would make you happy. But I'd be terrible company. " I went to the men's room, she to the ladies', I helped her with her coat, and we stepped out into the frozen air. The streetlights were on. We walked across the street arm in arm to her car. I looked up at the stars starting to fog, smelled the freezing air. " T ake it easy, driving. It's going to do something- snow . . ." I could see stuff pi led in the bac k. "What're ya bringing?"

"Just my things." She opened the door. A huge pile of Streisand albums on top of a mound of clothes. "Streisand and blue jeans, mostly. That's alii need."

We kissed goodbye. She felt big and warm in my arms. I pulled away quickl y and patted her hand resting on my shoulder. " You're crazy." " We'll find out." When she opened the door, I could see the area in front of both seats was scorched and blackened. "What happened?"

"Oh, the heater caught fire, but nothing happened."

I stared at the burned shell. "For God's sake, watch out, now."

When she was seated in the dark of the front seat, possum collar up about her cheeks, the radio playing, and the motor revving, she said, " I might be back-once." " I thought you said ... " " You know the guy with the water sculptures and mobiles? Brown?" " Yeah?" " He's been out for me a while." " Lot of guys a fter you."

"Except the one I want." " What about him? He's a bad customer." Cat who had appeared quite mysteriously in the art school, full black beard, a black opera cloak, spats and gaiters, a bad c ustomer to be sure though I'd never spoken a word with him.

"Just because you won't let me live with you doesn't mean you have to be so protective. It's very simple. I've been modeling an electric dress for him; I'm going to have to come back a nd model it one last time for him when he fi nishes it. The whole dress will have lights woven into it. It will be beaut-tee-full." She always said it li ke three Himalayan peaks. Beaut-tee-full. "If it works. And maybe he can sell it in New York or some place and become rich and I' ll go with him-just to be his model. The n I could start modeling in New York and maybe I'd get a part in

54

a s how. Don't look at me like th at. I a lready promised him . It's onl y fair. He's started it along my lines .. . " "Sounds dangerous."

She ha nded me a piece of paper. "My number in Chicago if you change your mind-his number." She popped th e clutch, took off side slipping, spinning out aro und the corner. Gone.

Bac k up at the house, I fo und the Poet staring at the unpa inted wood planks of our walls. As I told him the whole thing, he drew o n his Lucky Strike through his beard a nd looked at his desert boots from time to time. The Poet had numero us theories concerning love and will and choice. Phrases such as: the algebra of need ; a scrimmage of appetites; a contest of wills ; the geography of love; coming to terms with your cock. He was readi ng a lot of Caesare Pavese, J ames Wright, Bill Knott, suic ides and would-be suicides fo r love. Whe n I was finished talking he said three or four things; I can't remember if they were in this o rder: '' I wa nted to fuck her myself, one night, but her whole thing sounds like a stoneass drag." & " Why does she wa nt to live with you? Wh y? O h, come off it. You actually liste n to her serious ly. They like you because you're sympathetic." & 路路worried about her? Take care of herself? She'll always be o kay. She's better off now than we could ever hope to be. It's organic." At this point he flicked his ash. In the doorway he looked past me out the window. "The o nl y moral qu estio n is suicide."

He went into his little writing room a nd closed the door. I went back do wn to the bars.

When I woke up next mo rning j ust before noon with the customary cigar and beer hang over, I lay there for a long time listening to the freezing air, but I couldn't think of anything, anything at all, so I got up and crept o ut into the drafty ha llway. I wanted to go in and say, hey man, I've just gotten off a great dream, make o ne up, send the Poet careening off on a poem, I wanted to say, I think, you know, we're a ll wrong about Royal, all wrong, s he's great, she's everything a woman can be, I've made a mistake as tragic and profound as Caesare Pavese's suicide, sending the Poet into s pinning depths of imagery, pushing back the membrane of his conscio usness, fucking aro und with the alembic of his unconscio us and subconscious and dreams. ETCETERA. I wanted him to convince me Royal was what I needed. I sto pped s hort outside at the draft of cold air and c igarette smoke swirling in the sunlig ht of his door. Peeked inside, feeling like an emerging Kilroy.

The Poet was sitting at his plywood desk, back to me, a blue merchant marine knit cap o n, tufts of hair everywhere, his pheasant-hunting, logging j acket buttoned

55

up into h is beard. The window was wide o pe n. His ungloved ha nd rested on a ye llow pad pushed in a mong piles of boo ks o n huma n bra in a natomy, poet ry, wild life, Indian tot e mi c sy mbo ls, J un g, Fre ud, Ma rcuse, hard ca ndy, Lucky Stri kes, ta il fea thers of pheasa nts poked into the pages of boo ks . There was a vague scrawl on t he pad. His ha nd was still a nd b lue fro m the cold. Pe r iodicall y, his breat h clouded a ro und his head. Finally, his ha nd bega n to move. Slowly. Spas ti ca lly. Like t he need le of a seismograph or tida l wave d rum. Stop. St art.

I took a dee p breath. He had a good d ay for it, tho ugh muc h too cold fo r my taste . We li ved right next to the tow n dump a nd whe n it was burning we ll a nd t he wind was ri ght like it was today, t he Poet would o pen up t he w indows fo r t he fum es.

A fte r a w hile, he'd le t himself go into a trance a nd the fumes of the burning garbage pyres would move his a r m; he was si mply the ho no ra ry, o rga nic med ium li ke a n a nimate O ui -ja board. So he claimed . He was ho ping to hitc h electrodes to his scalp a nd ge t a n E.E.G. wh ile he was wr iting his poe try. Pe rh a ps draw rel ati onsh ips between those b ra in waves and t he ordina ry brain waves o f a schizophren ic. His ha nd bega n to move across the pad . I co uld sec his finge rs spas m. Tha t was e nough for me.

Outside, my eyes c losed against the white light. They o pe ned re luctantly. Icc hung in fil a me nts of sun o n tho usa nds of bra nc hes c lic king softl y in the wind like Japa nese wind c himes. There was a crust o f gra nulated ice on everything and t he wind was moving, a great s ile nt express t ra in of b lue sky.

I took a dee p breath an d skidded on the icc.

I was go ing in for coffee in the middle o f tow n whe n I tho ught I saw Royal outside the Ham burg Inn . She wa lked with her ha nds in he r coat pockets. So me thing a bout that. Lovely carri age. Whe n I recogni zed her , I knew I'd made a mistake, I sho ul d ha ve to ld he r to come o n a head a nd live with me. "I tho ught you were supposed to be in C hicago."

She wa lked g inge rl y on the ice, but ke pt her b ala nce. " I've bee n wa iti ng fo r you.

I knew yo u'd be ge ttin g he re a bout now fo r coffee."

Ins ide, s he to ld me how s he'd gone to have o ne last look at the poets' farm house befo re s he le ft. A pilgrimmage o f sorts from the sound of he r vo ice. F ive miles out of tow n a nd maybe a q uarte r of a mile down a dirt road . But the fa rmhouse, an old broken-down place w ith on ly a ha ndpump a nd outho use in bac k toward t he woods, had burned , maybe two or three mo nths ago. T he heater had caught fire. Now the re were books a ll over the tloor w ith pages b urned o ut of the m, come-sta ined , smokeblacke ned mattresses disgorg ing stuffing, b urned clo thes, fragme nts of burned poe ms whic h would probably find the ir way into some sto ned collage, un washed d ishes fro m befo re the fire with food still stuck to t he m- now, smoke b lackened . Whe n you stood inside, you could look through the tloor to the b aseme nt, look thro ugh the ce iling to the a tt ic, t hrough the att ic to the roof, a nd through the roof to the stars whirring in the gaping ho le a t night like spa rks fro m a great d yna mo. I'm sure t hat's just what she had d o ne-stood in the s mo ky smell o f burned poems a nd fire-eaten

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clot hes of the poe ts, stood looking up through the hole in the roof, s ighing soft ly to he rse lf in the s ilence, o h, the poets, the poor poe ts, the poor poets have no home.

Whe n she'd wo rked herself into a proper state, s he'd picked her way out through the crunching broken glass and holes in the floor, to come out o n the front porch and stare a t the junk cars, stuck in the ditches or ruts w here they'd been abandoned, worthless, or the drive r too sto ned to care, the cars s ilho uetted aga inst the frozen fields and woods, their rusti ng, horses hoe-crab bodies pai nted with peace symbols and quot es from Pound a nd Williams, Rilkc or Pavase, or Mad Magazine o r Zap com ics, impossible to read, now, in th e dark, quo tes the peasant ry out there on route eig ht y, seeing the somnabulists passing o n the ir way to or from San F ra ncisco a nd New Yo rk could never understand. She'd made her way out through the frozen cars and started back down the snow-covered di rt road. It was sleeti ng. Whe n she tried to move her ca r. it was st uck. It had been st uck a ll the tim e in the old ice of t he rut s. 路路so down on the road I thought sure I'd ge t a ri de, but it was a long time, and finall y thi s g uy stopped. Com ing in , ncar the bridge, I sa id, ' Let me out here, this is it.' But he wouldn't. he sta rted looki ng around for a place to rape me. I get so sick of that I could d ie. I grabbed the keys and whe n the car was slowing down, threw open the door and j um ped. He started to chase me, but I threw the keys in t he snow and that ended that. They'l l always stop and look fo r the ir keys." She laughed. " He was a j erk. The only problem is I' ve gotta get my car.''

Yeah, I saw what she meant. The only pro blem.

The Poet's ca r had been mistaken for abandon ed a nd towed by the city where it was impounded in a great F la nders Field of cars u ntil he paid his fine. We finished our coffee and went up to sec the Poet. We li ved on the edge of town. T he Poet had fini shed writi ng and was c lea ning his shotgun. T here was the arid smell of lemon o il and s ilicone. It sure didn't escape me how he looked her over. He was a little peeved about go ing to get the car. but I convinced him this was as good a day as any, so we went down to pay the im poundment fine at the police stat ion, no way out of that. Rece ipt in hand. a little cash between us, we hitc hed ou t to t he huge field, where the watchma n's Great Dane leaped up. jangling t he fe nce, paws hig he r than our heads, and bayed c louds of stea m into the freezing ai r, his sides shuddering wit h eac h bark, drool dropping on to the broke n crust about his hind paws, spattering o n the fe nce a nd for ming needles of icc.

After the watc hman waved us in , we spe nt a lo ng tim e walki ng t hrough the popping, icc-c rusted snow, moving up a nd dow n the s ilent rows of frozen cars, each o ne a bubble of glass and frozen steel a nd dead s mells, each like a bathysphere suspended at the bottom of an ocean. The junk and cars were cove red wi th icc a nd everythi ng !lashed and sho ne in the sunli ght. It was bli nding.

We finall y found t he car-a '58 w hite Ford. Completel y welded in icc. W e began to c hip at the doo r handles with pieces of j unk . Whe n the Poet pried open the d oor, icc popped a nd s hrap nc llcd in a ll directions.

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It wouldn't start. We called the watchman who brought the wrecker cras hing like an icebreaker up the crusted rows of glacial cars. More chipping to pry up the hood. Hands in pockets, Royal watched us w ith interest. The snow was just below the tops of her boots. We hitched up jumper cables a nd gave it a try. '' Whew, fell as, I think ya gotta getchyasclves a new battree."

Whe n he saw we weren't up for t hat song and dance, he got down to business.

We too k off the air filter. He started s hooting ether down into the air-intake. " Try it! " A sheet of flame jetted up out of the shadows of the Poet's engine. Royal screamed. The o ld timer gave it another blast. Another s heet of flame. " It's beauttee- full!" The engine s puttered. The old watchman gave her a real blast so the flames walked up all over the engine and rai sed hood li kc the inside of a dragon 路s mouth. She started.

The old watc hman cackled when we discovered the flat frozen to the rim. He s ped off, returning a few minutes later. Ho pped down and bounced a tire into the s now from o ut o f the back. "Got one justyer s ize . .. still got some tread . Five bucks.

Seven-fifty raise yer back end. " We had to pay.

Out at the fa rm, the VW was frozen over. Royal had forgotten to c lose the wind ows. I could just imagine the snowdrifts in o ur room. " Honey, please don't be angry an d whatever you do, don't look in the bedroom for o ne second. I forgot to close the window this mo rning.'' I hoped we wouldn't have any troubl e getting her car started .

The windward scats of the car were covered with icc. In back, the Strcisand albums and blue jeans were now an alloy rainbow in a block of icc . "Oh, God, ruined! '' New York's Ncfcrctiti. ''Nah, they'll thaw. Be fine. You' ll sec when you put th em o n th at guy's record player in C hicago."

We rocked her. The VW shot forward sudd enl y. Royal skidded sidewise almost up ove r us hang ing onto each fender and up into the fi eld, but the Poet and I hit the snow and ro lled, and s he we nt s ho oting out to the road, did a perfect three-sixty, ended up facing right. We rose and walked out to the road, brushing the snow off.

The Poet's beard was white with snow and balls of quickly forming icc.

Royal threw ope n the door and came running down the road as we were about to get bac k in the Ford. She sure looked beautiful out there running in the sunlight, the icy fields s preading awa y all around her, hair fl yi ng in the sunshine. Her cowboy boots were da rk with melted snow up to the ankles. "Oh!" She stood gasping. "Oh!" A great 0 of breathe in the suns hine. '' It's late. Let's get sto ned and go sec Yellow Suhmarine. Then I' ll buy you a pitcher. Both of you." She brushed some of the snow off my jac ket. I hesitated. The shadows we re lo ng a nd blue in the fie lds.

"Nah, thanks." The Poet looked up and down the road. I knew he was listening for my answer with all of his e laborate theories of love and w ill and suicide, but I was starting to fee l like a dope, so I sa id, no, too, tho ugh I sort o f wanted to. But

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no t really. I watched the lovely muscles mo ving beneath her jeans as she ran back up to the .car, she wo bbling slightly on the heels. I didn 't breathe easy until! saw her turn off behind us o nto the interstate. Then I co uld start to care a little.

The Poet shrugged and mumbled something abo ut cho ice and will and possibility. I said, shit, s he's a pain, whad'ya think the temperature is o n the bank sign? We bet a pitcher. I was seven degrees too low, the Poet off by two (low), but I said I didn 't trust the m, they had the temperature high to create an arti ficia l climate of optimism-good fo r s pending. The Poet said he'd taken all of th at into consideratio n before he made his guess. He was damned smart. The bank s pelled it out. 16 ... 3:4 7 . .. 16 ... 3: 47 ... 16 ... 3:48 ... 16 . .. 3:4 8 .. . you co uld go crazy watching it.

In another half hour it wo uld start dropping down for the nig ht. All I had to do was say one syllable: yes.

I was reall y lo w, still lying around doing nothing, w hen s he came walking toward me do wn the street o ne day in February. I guess I was ha ppy to see her. " How's it going?"

She s hrugged. " I left him. He wanted me to stay in all the time. T he pl ace was too sma ll. We fo ught. I knew it before I went. O h! I brought you something." She unbutto ned her coat a nd pulled o ut a copy of a sumptuo us nude sketc h by Bo ucher.

"For you." " Me? W hy?" " I like it. I like you."

"Thanks. How we re the reco rds when they de-iced?"

"Okay, like you said they'd be, though the covers were ruined . .. I bo ught some more . We ll, not e xactly. I swiped them. The sto res figu re it into their budgets, anyway. For the covers. I love them." She laugh ed. " But the pl ace I'm living in now doesn't have a record player. Just bums. Either they pass out o r feel m e up in the halls, goddamn 'em , but the place is cheap. " "That's lo usy. I'll buy you a beer."

She squeezed my sto mach . "Still nothing. You're incredibl e. Living like you do, a nd stro ng as a bull. I'll buy. Yo u got me o ut of the ice last time . . . " " Ah ... " We had a few. S he'd seen the Y ellow Submarine three times : ac id, mescaline, TH C. " And, o h, yeah, I knew there was so mething I've bee n meaning to te ll yo u." She took the Star of Dav id from between her lips and sat up. " You know who I saw?" " Who?" " Guess!" I guessed. " No ! No ! Who's Meher Baba? NO! You're way off. Yo u know O tis Redd ing's dead . Why are you guess ing dead peo ple? You kn ow who?

Areth a! Areth a Franklin! I know ho w c razy yo u are abo ut her. The who le time she sang, I was thinking onl y of you and how much you would have loved seeing her. It was like being with yo u." ' 'She is a gas."

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路路when the lights came up, she ripped off her hair. She was a guy! T otally bald.

Or shaved . In a sequin dress. A guy. But it sounded like her. Exactly like her! It blew my mind when he threw the w ig into the audience. Ri ght near me ! I could have ca ught it and s howed it to you. I'd still have believed I'd see n Aretha if he hadn't taken off the wig, but there must be a law against impersonati o n."

I la ughed for a long time, looking at the Boucher beyond a small puddle of bee r o n the tab le. She laughed, too.

Later, we went to my place and gave it a nothe r try, but I sti ll couldn't do my stuff.

I kept listening from time to time for the sc rape of the Poet's chair. Don't know why.

Royal lay back in bed with her great breasts flat and overflowing down onto her arms. She quivered, o nce . I made feeble excuses. " I guess it was the beer."

She slapped me lightly on the s houlder. "The beer! She's still hanging you up. " She put he r arms around me. "What a waste." She never made me feel bad. " But you know, so me morning, you'll be back together again. Don't let them draft you.

Please! Go over to student health . It doesn't matter you've quit. They'll still see you.

I knew a guy who got letters from the shrink a nd got o ut." She sighed. ''But you won't. You'll let it slide and they'll ge t you and you' ll have your handsome head blown off. " She put her hand o n my cock, thus bringing the matter to a close, I presumed.

Before s he too k off aga in, I tacked the Bo uc he r up o n the rough wooden planks over my mattress.

The Poet had come across somet hing in Pavase. Wasn't it love wanting to relive the chi ld hood of another? Maybe, but that's what had finally ruin ed me wi t h Leila ... he r fathe r a drunken sa lesman moving from town to town ... when s he was e ighteen, she'd been raped on a logging road in the dead of w inter. She'd been angry at he r father and gone to hitchhike up to the fami ly summerhouse. She had been a virgin. When she told me how they had turned onto the logging road, and the n trying to run, his footsteps s lowly became my footsteps on the frozen ground .

She could still remember the unnatural grip of his ha nds: he'd bee n a pipefitter.

Like converg ing images in a camera's viewfinder, the double image of the face less ma n a nd myself became one. The next day, s he had pinned the torn fly of her Levis with safety pins and called he r father. She never to ld him . She told me. I was the right o ne. If I forgot and picked her up off the ground in play, he r face would shatte r like an image painted on g lass a nd s he'd screa m. He r pipcfitter's hands on the whee l, we drove up that a bandoned logging road nig ht after night. We ran the whole thing o n very hi g h oc tane, vaporous guilts an d taboos. I apologized for her bad ma rriage. In the e nd , I apologized fo r being a man. A bad move. I was never more potent. She knew she had he r ma n.

And Pavase'! Why should I care what Pavase had said'! H e had committed sui cide over some Amer ican actress - that was one theo ry. He bl ew it. What'd he kn ow about love? Enough to let it get to him? Was that ge nius? Nah, Leila sure had gotten

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to me, a nd a ll I did was stay in Rosa's - not exactl y worth the Nobel Prize.

In a muc h different way, I loved the adol esce nce o f RoyaL the vacuum o f the interstates, a state of pure perpetual e nergy.

But now, I couldn't get it up. The ma n o n the logging road had fin all y caught me. He had a n unn aturally strong grip. I think I could have eve n stopped tripping out on pasts a nd stood still for loving in the prese nt te nse just to renew that simple organic mirac le.

The sprin g was going to be late. When we had a cold snap in late March, I was personally e nraged . I cared a lot about the weathe r. I wanted to sec green thin gs, growing thin gs, again. Toward the end of that cold snap, I saw the Poet coming up the stree t towa rd me with his quick sprite steps , coming throug h the afternoon shadows thrown by the houses on o ur s ide of the stre et. He was blow ing clouds of brea th. Whe n he ca me up, I co uld see his smok y blue eyes s hining and searching me. ''Wherc've you been for the last wee k? Growing a beard? I was sta rting to think you'd gone somewhere."

I to uc hed my uns have n face. " a h! A beard! I was pissed at the weather." I to ld him I'd gone o ut to a friend's fa rmhouse, wrapped m yse lf in a big qui lt behind his o il heater, a nd s le pt and read science fict ion fo r a week. 路'Ya have an y good dreams? Notice an y changes in your metabolism?" '' Me tabolis m? I don't know. I suppose I dream ed all week . Science ficti o n and Le ila. I think I'm getting up to her adolescence, maybe up to he r marriage by now, but I'll be through it o ne o f these days, you'll sec. Throug h it and out in time for the s pring wine drunks . The Sylvan Spring-Time Boozers' Annua l Lawn Drink. It will be magnificent. I'll roll in those muddy fields with the cows and do gs and laugh. '' 路'What were th e dreams?"

"Ah, I forgot. Thank God. But I' ll re me mbe r to write 'em down next time.

Prom isc." " Yea h, while you' ve bee n slee ping, your frie nd came back to town. Don't loo k so mystified! Roya l, man. She came back to try on Brown's e lectric dress."

'The re reall y was an e lectric dress ! I tho ug ht she was putting me o n.' ' '路 Yo u eve r take a c lose look at th at guy Brown? I kn ew whe n I saw him in h is black opera cloa k squeezing hi s way thro ugh t he to matoes ove r at the Eagle that he was n't kidding. No, man , it's come o ut s ince th at he's not the usua l run of the mill artsy-fartsy over the re o n the other s ide of the river. He has a degree in electrical e ngineering from M.I.T. He used to design e lectrica l sys te ms for jet fi ghters before he ca me o ut here. Sh it, man! There's a war o n now, unless you 've forgotten. Which yo u won't cause the re's a letter from your draft board up at the house."

Then he told me about the dress w hic h had become common knowledge by now.

Eve ryone had bee n talking about nothing else for a week. How Brown had led Royal up to his second floor st udio, through his wandering mobiles and bubbling

61

water sculptures with lights flas hing through them , and how she had gone behind the Chinese scree n in the corner, taken off her jeans and cowboy boots and come o ut weari ng the dress, a skin tig ht s heath laced with fine wires and tiny bul bs woven into the fa bric - a burnished aluminum. Dazzling. She wore black stockings with a faint irridescent purple underto ne. She turn ed in a complete circle slowly th e way models did in f as hio n shows. Brown fitted his mo nocle, threw the switch, and stroked his beard. She was com pletely li t up. A couple of guys standing on the landing saw it. The third was alread y on his way to get a movie camera. O h, J esus, s he was beautiful. The light seemed to move up and down her stockings in clouds of static e lectric ity. Her bright blue eyes were li ke lasers. And the dress! You co uld not look directly at her lit up. Imposs ible. Brown pinched out his mo nocle, s lipped on shades. " It's beaut- tee- full." She ran her hands along the dazzling contours of her bod y. "Oh! Bea ut- tee-full! " A puff of smo ke at the hem. She let o ut a single scream as the dress crackled and flas hed. T he camera caught that - the third guy was back. The dress burned completely off her . Brown kicked the door shut and bolted it in the faces of the three o n th e landing, but they watched through the key hole and cracks, the camera shooting on. The smoke was clearing, there wasn't a s ingle mark on her white body, and as o ne of them stuttered late r, "She was absolutely untouched ... as . .. a butterfl y from a cocoon! " And o h, Brown was cool as they come. He unplugged the dress, carefully removed his vest, shirt, s pats, gaiters, pants. He took her right there on the fl oor beside the blackened fuselage of the dress he had painstakingly spent mo nths constructing.

They we nt caree ning, rolling a nd moaning through the overturning water sculptures, Roya l having orgas m afte r orgasm . The water started to flow out under the door and into the a irducts, f looding the people in the rooms be low. Everyo ne in the ho use was o n the landing trying to peer through the cracks in the o ld door until o ne of the big fi ve hundred gallo n babies overturned and everyone ran, screaming and laughing down the stairs befo re a wall of wa ter. Even at the bottom of the stairs, they could hear the m still moaning and splashing around like whales in a tidal pool.

We walked quick ly in the cold . We were headed fo r th e house . " Royal's all moved in with him. He got her an o ld uprig ht piano wh ich she plays ni ght and day. The ne ig hbo rs a re going o ut of the ir minds, not to mentio n e veryone else li ving in th at ho use . Oh, ma n! What an image: untouched like a butterfly from a cocoon.

I as ked that guy if he was a poet. He thought I was putting him o n. Th ink of all the poetry in o ur collective unconsc ious. I've tri ed to work th at image into five poems a lread y. And the mov ies are grea t. I hear they're showing the m in the parti es over the hardware store. They came o ut framed thro ug h a key hole. The who le thing sy ncopated to the band and the lig hts, they s how it on all four walls. At once!"

I must have had a funn y expression beca use the Poet as ked me what was wrong. " Yo u're jea lous, now, are n't you?"

"She could have been electrocuted. "

62

I'

路路But that was j ust the risk!" "" Risk? Yo u don 'tthink he burned it off he r on pu r pose'!'"

We were coming up to the dump. I could sec the names d a ncing a round a nd disa ppea ring into the freezing a ir. The Poet too k a dee p breat h. ''We'll just never know what he inte nded. But look at the evidence. Brown was c razy about Ro ya l.

And then. o f course, the re's always love to cons ider. ..

63

Dennis Saleh

COCOON A s hee t castle of faded glass and lead catwalk.

Like a cocoon, a grey-green commemoration of something past.

The dull white of dying glances with late afternoon light, at the last light , the flat gleam unpolishes to chalk .

Dimly seen, the growing goes on inside uninterrupted, dense rows of flesh and color tissue tiering up.

Sounds fade away, like foots teps beneath the pat hways.

A deep pulse of moisture mats with heat and rises.

Some time in the nigh t the glass will loosen and fall away.

The layered plate covering dead at last a nd open.

An enormous form might unfold, dry evenly, flutter, a d oor might ope n, and something blink thro ugh.

Conservatory Greenhouse, San Francisco

64

John Unterecker IS LAND

Hotel so unds-steps -after sile nce. Yaw ns and wh isp ers . Si le nees that fit around steps-sile nces pale as gloves e nclosing sound. The bark of a dog.

Steps.

Wind shaped by a narrow valley. The rustle of w ind in drape ries- ru stle of si le nee di sarranged by footsteps.

Midnight 's noise--<:rickcts, tree toads--sharpening the wind. Ba rk of a dog a nd the soft rustle of catt le pushing through rushes. Splash of catt le crossing the stream, water swirling above hooves, a swirl of wind wrappi ng silence.

As if this ho te l were a great mirror wh is pering.

2 Confessions: I like stripping d own, water lifting my breas ts. That boy wa tc hing me: he wa nts it, wate r tunne lling me in the s urf. In this gree n water, my hair darkens, my eyes darken down. A woma n is half mermaid in this lu xuri ous water, her body turning and turnin g in the green mythologies of his eyes.

Da rkness a nd a da rkness in the soul.

This myste ry th at exte nds from a taste of spray on t he lips, o ur salt blood hungering. The film s of sa lt y sweat lovers in vent. Lot's wife re me mbering lovers lost, a pilla r of white salt .

Her backward glance toward darkness, the darken ing fl a mes that broken speec hless towe rs re me mber in my blood.

I turn in this stra nge place toward the sea.

There is a ballet: a woman floating on the sea, a boy's eyes watch ing from the shore.

And so stretch o ut with in a pl under of lost palms.

a free choice waiting a form silhouetted on night trees isolated on an island sky.

An e mpt iness . an e mpt y figure waiting in th e s hadows of tall palms.

65

To he a se~f' a ./(mn like tall a form ...

3 Opening Night Say that it is the third re hearsal of the play, our acti ons blocked fo r the first two scenes but lines uncertain and the white body of the play no more than a vague sense of troubled li ves.

The author has withdrawn the script, the director resigned.

Our manager expla ins: an unfortunate confusion of dates.

Perha ps we should pl ay Hamlet.

We have no Ophelia; Horatio is on tour in Oedipus R ex.

I hear a cue. My mouth begins to s peak.

4 Where is the real? In air, sea, abrupt palms?

It is as if God makes and unm akes the world in a click of time: we are was.

This chi ld splashing through surf is an image on film. You turned a corner o nce, I remember, yet when I turned that corner there was a bent acac ia, a stone landscape. I think of Valery, who studied dawn, his face framed in the changing light. Was he most Valery then or at some noon of the m ind whe n, intent o n bent light, his finger stopped the sun?

Here in this sunburnt place, I change-like thi s coi I of turning surf, or the turning gestures of three figures at an ocean's rim.

5 That boy we imagined o n the beach picks up a camera, his towel, his shoes. He is a lready a s hadow among shadowy palms.

Footsteps that echo in a fiction of this ho tel blur into silences.

My mouth begins to speak as if each new improvisation were bare truth.

66

John Woods

THE GIRL WHO HAD BORNE TOO MUC H

That girl has borne too much, there, in her locked bed.

We need to see the caul flaming, the drooled lip, ancestral greed stamping its old medalli on on the childish brow, something dragging a swollen foot 路at the edge of our shadows.

But whatever walks her night corrido rs, its hair burning, does not lie in her arms. Now her face is smoothed back to childhood. We know th at th e who re may breathe sweet milk, and a lean christ lie back at ease in the fat-rinded murderer.

C hild, and whoever wears your young body in the bad ni ghts, an old sea washes thi ckl y in our rooms, and we must drown together.

67

Siv Cedering Fox LIKE A WOMAN I N THE KITCHEN

You talk constantly like a woman in the kitche n at home with pots and pans and stirring.

The words follow a natural motion: a quick wrist whipping cream into froth, the knife chopping scallions.

It is the kind of ta lk that knows that someone's listening: "Spread your legs.

I have tho ug ht about your cunt all d ay. I like to feel it changing."

And like a girl coming ho me from school I melt into the talking.

All instruction s are as natural as "dry those glasses, taste some frosting, lick the spoon."

And as a woman lifts something that has cooked all daya broth rich with roots: carrots and potatoes, parsnips, turni ps, rutabaga, you lift my hips, smell, taste, start to eat.

I like marrow.

Soon it s lips out of your bo ne.

I eat it warm.

68

Robert L. Jones SETTING THIS DOWN

There isn't eve n a constellation o ut here I could imagine as your face.

What I thought was a shoe a nno uncing from the porch was only Black Walnut thudding to its death in the high grass.

It's cold, and out here there's a vac uum that wants me.

I'd hoped it was you .

I'm setting this down for you, anyway.

Each si p of brandy sends up a shower of light to the bl ack place in my brain where you wai t.

Eac h time, the aura of your face.

But right now an aura isn't enough.

I think I took in a sliver of that vacuum, my mouth shaped to say YES ... Y ES, and now it's in my belly and growing.

Where are your eyes? Where is your mouth?

Why don't you come o ut of the dark and talk to me?

Yo u are a mirage, I am drinking the black sand of yo ur face.

69

G alway Kinnell

Little sorrows, don't go away forever .

70

William Stafford SITKA

It began to come true, that long cold

part of the map. Gulls in serene lines quoted themselves till the real s hore.

And then stone.

We converged on a slant of surf so white the mist ran away and then trees promised and crossed, back, back, and the n stone.

That fo rest held a thin history, a state, a place, a dee p, drenched curta in, a gleam of samovar, a totem in the night, and stone.

71

Christine Cook

N IG HT STALKER I had my ritu al for mid-shift nights. He didn't leave until I I :40, but by II :30 I tucked myself in bed wit h books, a transistor, an d a coup le of Libriums dissolving somewhere in my ta ngled stom ach. I kept up a brave fro nt. But it was the Librium.

The furnace blower blotted o ut most of th e sou nds of his leaving. The garage was o n the other s ide of the bedroom wall , so I could hear th e VW start up, back o ut, and then the wooden doors swing closed . But I'd have th e radio up by then so I wou ldn 't have to remember the car sound fading away. T here's something about a fading sound that makes me want to strain to hear it long after I can.

The onl y rock statio n o n at this hour was crack ling from the furnace and fading away because of th e batteries, so I figured I' d be real gutsy and turn it off and let the blower alone blo t out any sound.

I was into a third reading of a collection of short sto ri es whe n I started thinking about the s now. It wasn't a winter story, in fact it was one of those Hemingway stories set in Spain. I'd read it twice before and I guess even before I got to the part w here they say a ll the " nada's" I thought about the snow. It was odd, but th e snow didn 't crunch. When I was a kid the s now I knew crunched, but here the snow was powdery and dry. And s ile nt. It made me nervous-that my mind was still working away from the sto ries. I tho ught about taking another pill, but decided I might get sick or something. Mostl y, it was because I'd have to face that livingroom window where th e curta ins didn ' t quite meet and the bathroom window with those matchstick curtains that sliced across my reflection.

But somehow I talked myse lf out of thinkin g of the s ile nt snow as sin iste r. I remembered a gradeschool science book that s howed two ho uses, one wi th snow on the roof and one without. And how good it was to have your ho use packed in by snow for insul at ion. Actuall y, I was kidding myself, but the thoug ht of me surrounded by kids in class made me uncurl my body a little.

I looked around for the cat, but I remembered I had let her o ut the night before.

She was in heat, and r ather than try to hold her back I let her go. " Heat," I said right o ut loud.

My voice sounded like it was being squeezed o ut. Wh y wasn't the Li brium work ing? I cleared my throat to reassure myse lf.

72

''My eat's in heat." It sounded better and I was glad the cabin was too small fo r an echo.

I remembe red the pint of whiskey we kept under the s ink . Anti-freeze, we called it. " I'll have a shot and that'll do the trick."

I decided to talk my way past the window without looking up.

"Two Libriums shouldn 't make me O.D. if I have just a bit of whiskey. Poor Judy.

That's what did it for her-booze and pills." I talked lo uder in the kitchen like someo ne was really liste ning to me abo ut Judy Garland . I imagined there was a friend who had warned me about mixing drugs like that, but I told her that I had no intention of O.D.ing and besides Judy had pro bably been at this sort of thing longer th an I had.

What sort of th ing'! she said . " Being lo nely. And besides I'm not really lone ly. I just hap pe n to be alone."

What 's the difference? s he said. " Hey, I gotta get some sleep. I'm not gonna argue about Judy Garland, for shit's sake."

The whiskey fe lt hot going down as it left its trail in my throat. I felt a little mo re confident now about getting some slee p.

I d idn't fi nis h t he Hemingway thing and I wa-; feeling the beginning of drowsiness so I decided to read copyright dates instead. They we re kind of ha rd to figure ou t in Roman numeral form, but it was a good way of boring myself to sleep.

The MCX 's were beginning to haze over when the blowe r clicked off. The light was o n and I was thinking abo ut turning it off and sort of dreaming that my arm was float ing up at it when I heard a scraping under the cabin. C runching snow, I thought, and cased down a little mo re.

Then it was like so mething was holding me down. Maybe it was the booze or the pills, but I started sayi ng th at the s now doesn't crunch until I was sitting up and rotating my arms to stop th e tingling in my armpits.

"The cat.''

My body jerked as I shook off the tingling that was running t hrough it. I went to the mirro r to sec myself ho ping I'd look drowsy. I figu red I'd shake n off the dope for my eyes were clear but not terror stricken, I told myself.

I leaned over the floor ve nt and listened again. Only two cats now. She neve r had a c ha nce to make up her mind betwee n the white fat one from across the road o r the d ar k one that lived off o ur garbage. T he white one's keeper had been over that d ay looking very upset over her male cat who'd gotten o ut of his cage. " Would yo u mind if I went into your cellar?" s he'd asked me. " My eat's down there a nd I'm worried."

I didn't like her. She sort of wrung her hands like she was afraid for him. And it was my cat getting screwed.

"No, go a head."

I didn't go with her, but I could hear her soft babying voice calling him. Then

73

a struggle. Panic came u p through the vent. She had him. All clear for the garbage cat. I reme mber thin king.

She neve r tha nked me o r even apo logized. I wo uld have asked her in fo r coffee if s he had.

I saw the white po m-pom tucked in her coat as she crossed the road. He was probably clawing at her chest and I felt sorry fo r him .

As I loo ked dow n the vent I imagined the po m-pom pacing alone in his cage defeated . " Hey cats. ya havin' fu n?" I called to the cellar couple. I never saw cats mate, but I bet they cuddled toget he r and when they got the urge they'd play awhi le and tease each other, do it, and cuddle again. It o nl y lasted a couple of days, but I bet they made the most of it, not sto pping to eat o r anythi ng. ''Hey lady," (she didn't have a name), I called throug h the vent, "when ya gonna be thro ugh'?" I sta rted laughing. One of those nervous laughs. I felt kind of crude like a kid who does n't understand things like th at.

"How come ya take so goddamned long?" I leaned aga inst the closet door and wis hed I co uld get her to come up and s lee p on my bed tonight. " Now, what did Fred say? White or green?" Fred was a friend who'd given me the dope to calm my nerves when I was alone. He'd had a breakdown aw hi le back and had a prescriptio n. I co uld never remember wh ich drug was stronger. But I figured I had onl y five or s ix w hite capsules and a couple of dozen green a nd black, so the white o nes must be stron ge r.

It'd been a couple of hours since th e booze and more time than that since the Librium, so I figured I wou ldn't O.D. wi th just one more. A wh ite one this time.

I tried to avoid looking through the matchsticks in the bathroom, but somehow the corner of my eye fastened to it. I felt panicky at see ing myself through them.

"Don 't run. Be cool. Just turn around, walk to bed, and climb in. Easy as pie.

Just do it," I told myse lf.

I could see myself in front of the mirror over the mantle again in my uncle's parlor. I'd climbed up to see myself in the dark. My pupils dilating and the lids pulling back until it wasn't me in that mirror anymore. The face was just two bulging eyes. I'd run, panicki ng myself by running. But my uncle had been there that time to catch me as I ran o ut.

I made it to bed pacing myself to some march tune. Maybe that's why they made soldiers march to mus ic, I tho ught. It took my mind off the reflection and the hours before daylight.

I felt pretty sill y abo ut it all. I mean almost running out of my own bathroom because I saw myself. I decided to laugh o ut loud. Maybe I could strike up a conve rsation. '' How dya fee l when ya O .D.?" I asked. " Do yo u just sort of slip away o r fall real heavy'!"

I heard there's sto mach cramps, she said.

74

" My stomach's okay. A little tight maybe, but it's that scare in the bathroom. I me an, I'd be wr ithing in pain by now, wouldn 't I?" " Wo uldn't I?" I figured this was even sillier. Asking myse lf questions I didn' t know anything abo ut.

I o pened the sho rt sto ry book again. In the back were two s hort novels, something by Kafka and one called Turn of the Screw . That kind of made me laugh aga in and think about the cats in the cellar.

But I started to think abo ut the landlady. My mind was still functioning pretty clear I thought. But damn her anyway, my stomach still felt tight.

The landlady didn' t wa nt her dog screwing either. She'd had him fixed, s he'd said. I could almost hear him yelping in the truck waiting for her to come out to him. " What kind was he? Oh yeah, one of those toy poodles with a funny name. Poops ie," I said out loud.

It wasn' t Poopsie, the voice said. " Well , it was like that. Her baby, she called him."

I could just see him running around the house, performing for her and her cuddling him when he was good. " Not right," I said.

What's not right? she asked.

"Cutt ing him that way."

Maybe she's lone ly and afraid he'd leave her, she said. " We ll, I don' t want to ta lk about it."

I didn' t. I reall y didn't. But it was started alread y. Too late to sto p my mind from wo rking. I could keep from running but I couldn't stop my mind.

The landlady had told me a story. About the night her husband was wo rking on the railroad a ll night. And she was alone-before she got Poopsie . " We li ve in a trailer right behind o ne of the places we rent out. Ve ry ha nd y, most times."

I was nodding and smiling. She was a nervo us woman. Small and boney, but kind of to ugh too. I hoped I'd never look li ke that.

"But one night Dale was out o n extra duty. I didn 't mind being a lo ne, not really.

I got all the conveniences- pho ne--oh, I set ya do n't have o ne here, do ya?"

I said no.

"Should get one, ya know. 'Specially s ince you spend so many nights alo ne and all. But anyway, I was in bed watchin' TV when the lights went out. I was pretty co mfy, so I figured it'd be fixed soon. But then I heard the doorknob rattle." " Was it Dale?" I asked . It was a s illy questio n, but she made me feel like I should say something.

"I thought that at first, but th ank goodness I didn't call out because the rattlin' stopped and I heard crunc hin' sounds outside." " Does your sno w crunch?" I asked.

75

" Huh?" " Sorry, go on," I said. She wou ld've anyway. '' I started to feel a little un easy by then and decided I'd just lay there and figure it a ll o ut. But the n there was a funny light for a moment o uts ide the wi ndow that lasted just a second. By God, it was a match!"

"A match?" I wasn't following .

"Why sure! Someone was outside the trai ler smo kin ' and pacin' . Well, I crept-1 mean reall y crept--Dutta bed, s lithered along the floor and eased up to the kitchen dr awer where I kee p my butcher kni ves. I grabbed me the biggest and sharpest one I had and s lithered just like a snake-Dale said that abO ut me when I told him thisback into bed."

She broke into laughte r now. I guess it was pretty funn y to her since it was all over.

"The pho ne was by my bed and I tried it. But, by G od, he'd c ut the wires. That's why no electricity too. I was quiet as a mouse, even ke pt my breat hin' down, and figured bed was the best place for me. It was warm and he couldn 't see me and I co uldn't see him."

I remember looking at my windows when she said that and thought about the insul at io n and the sto rm windows that were up even when we moved in in August.

She'd started in agai n. " .. . pacin' a ll night. T hen he'd ratt le the knob, I'd see a match fl ash, and hear the crunchin' aga in. Wouldn' ta believed it if someone told me. How he j ust kept circlin ' the trai ler never breakin ' in o r talkin'. But morn in' come and all th at was left we re burnt out matches and cigarette butts. But Dale, he's not tak in' anymore chances, bought me a sho tgun to kee p by the bed. Wo n't eve r happe n aga in in a million years to me or anyone . Well, sorry fo r bcndin' your ear so long. Anything you need just give me a call. " " I d o n't have a phone," I said. " Good investment. Ta lk to your husband about getti n' o ne. Ya never know."

T he blower was go ing full blast , but my ears were ringing a little bit. I was straining to hear beyond the furnace, but I didn 't know for what. The landlad y was right.

Wo uldn't hap pen again in a million years. ''What was the crunching? I shoulda as ked her abo ut that, I gotta get some rest.

Da mn these pills. How long th ey gonna take?"

My armpits were prick ly again. I reall y didn' t want to have anymo re conversatio ns. She sounded so goddamned smug anyway.

G et a kn ife if it' ll make you feel better, s he said. " I d on't need a knife." I was getti ng pretty irritated with her by now. " I need a drink. It a lmost worked last time except fo r those damn cats screwin' under the blowe r vent. '' You still have to face the window, you kno w, she said.

I decided to keep things to myself at this poi nt. I didn' t need this kind of talk.

76

There wasn't much left in the bottle, so I decided to sit by the blower ve nt a nd drink unti l I got drowsy. I co uld barely hear the cats scraping as they changed pos it ions. They were silent othe rwise. ·•so damn sm ug down there. Lousy stink in' cats! Lady, when ya gonn a be through with him? Ya gotta cat, ya know. Come on up. Here kitty k itty ."

The scraping stopped again a nd t he blower clicked off. M y face was hot from the furnace air and I was sti ll s houting for her to come to bed.

I stared at the bed fo r a long time until my eyes we ren' t foc using on it anymore.

I shook my head to try and sec it but I couldn ' t control my eyes. My cars were picking up sounds and I couldn't seem to turn my head towa rds them. I began to wis h I'd had her fi xed. F ixed good so she'd stay with me. It wasn' t right to have a pet that wanted to run off. What was I supposed to do w hile she got screwed in the cellar?

But the sounds were lo uder. The no-sounds whe n you 're a lone. The refrigerator humm ing. th e ho use cracking. and the cats. I could a lmost hea r them breat hi ng. I imagined them languid and licking each ot he r and I fe lt like the pom -pom across the road and Poops ie too, pacing and sme lling. Do ing instinctual things and not know ing why.

My stomach was tighte r than ever. but I kept saying it wasn't cramps, I won 't O .D . It made it hard gettin g dressed ho lding my stomach a nd lean ing aga inst the c loset forci ng the snow boots on my bare feet.

But I got out of the cabin. I locked myse lf out. The cold made me forget my stomach and the glaze on my eyes seemed to break off in chunk s.

I went to the wind ows and looked in . It was funny bu t there wasn' t a ny re tlccti o n on this side o f the windows. I fe lt safer o ut here looki ng in at where I'd bee n. Thinking how funny that I wasn' t afra id on this side of the glass.

I stood in the darkness for a lo ng while a nd looked past the neig hbo rs to the highway. But th ere were no ca rs, no lights. I la ughed a t my ho use with the only lights on a nd me sta nding in the dark looking in.

I could ha ve gone into the war m garage a nd down into the cellar, but they were there. So I stomped around the yard t ry ing to make the snow c runch like it d id when I was a kid. But it was silent like it a lways was.

I began to c ircle the ho use bending down under the wi ndows and easi ng up to peck in. I'd been afraid of tha t c haracter who'd te rrifi ed the landlady. Now I felt I a lmost knew that man who hated light and heat. It was a powerful thi ng being on the o uts ide whe re reflections weren't allowed. Poo psie knew it a nd so did the pompom. but that 's why people kept them in cages, I supposed .

I sat in the snow just on the edges of the w indow light and wished I could meet that man. the o nly one I ever knew of who deserved being cal led a nig ht stalker. I wa nted to ask him al l about the snow and how he made it crunch . And what he thought about fi xing pets and all. Maybe eve n have him over to the house fo r coffee and a look thro ugh the matchstick curtains. But night sta lkers weren' t like that. I kn ew it.

77

It was time to go. I thought I'd head for Black ie's Bar. I could see his sign all fuzzed over by icc fog clicking o n and off and maybe it was the cold or maybe I j ust liked his name, but it looked like a nice place to head fo r even if I never got t here.

I moved across the yard to the road. My breath was mixing wit h the ice fog very nicely, I tho ught. Not like on clear ni ghts whe n it intrudes somehow. I was almost as si lent as the snow exce pt fo r the whisperi ng th at kept me pacing my steps.

78

David Steingass LOTUSBOUND

Picnic We dri ve through two slee py Sheet metal roof to wns Peter Lorrie could wander out of.

The rest is Anahe im, the same smog Blunders over pineapple fields.

We picnic below Kae na Po int.

Where the road gives o ut and the w inte r surf Marches in twenty foo t crests.

Where drunk, barefo ot Navy guys Bomb tidal wave warning s irens With Gallo jugs o f Pacific Ocea n.

It all seems to gather on this tight Little island: constructio n machines' Unea rthly shrie ks and wrenchings; Huge scars in the red earth.

2

Japanese TV

Sumo wrestlers sow pinch es of salt On the screen. Their feet Seem to rise from taproots, Their immense, stylized bodi es Collide with medi eval impact Among Peter 's eve rgreens And miniature porcelain.

We sip warm sake.

Suddenly their cro uch is Tro ut 's As he learns to walk! He breathes Lightly as a finch in his crib.

I try to plow the dark loam Between child a nd Sumo crouch To s ift it out for Peter who will thrive there .

But I am borne in a thimble o f sake Snoring like a dog.

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3

The Bisho p Museum

lwi and o'o, birds plucked For Kamehameha's Woven feather ro bes: royal s hrouds For the e nds of their species.

The yellow and red plumage Made him appear to be wrapped in gold.

Felled in mo untains, Dragged by hand to the beach.

Outriggers fashioned from huge koa trunks.

Thousands launched (no w, The trees going) .

A knife handle's inl ay, precise As bra ided rawhide Or porcupine quill embro idery. Strange As slow turtles' shells, diced For the mosaic handle.

A large bone fishhook, The eye so perfectly ro und I think it the bone's structure And stare lo ng minutes, Trying to imagine sinewy body ropes.

Polished on centuries of s hark skin, The long s hank Bears mother-of-pearl as lure. For barb: A glossy s hark's tooth!

Wired from the ceiling, Seventy feet of blue wha le (a Greyhound bus!)

Flukes fo r the hook, its o pposite side Stripped to the bone Bes ide T a hitian gowns and cymbals.

4

Hiking

We study bloo d dro ps scattered in orchid bowls, Banyans' aeri al root fores ts, An overwhelming harmo ny of odors .

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Mangrove roots wrestle every step of the two mile hike To Manoa Falls. A crab spider Baits one water sparkl ing filament From the ce iling-surface Of foliage, his tint and textures Those of a bright, enameled broach.

Trout cries out, cocks his head And reaches.

The peculiar bronze mud Stains our pores and scrubs out hard.

I think of ichor, Rarified blood of the gods.

Wound with vines, you ng trees Look like the flayed lengths of a human leg.

Bamboo clusters spray With photographic unity: Chinese brush drawings, quiet bursts At tropic random.

5

Surfing

A quarter-mile off Waikiki My seven-foot-four pigboard Floats solid as a water-logged piano.

John brought me every stroke: Waxing the board, Belly-flopping, angling through white water Or leaning back, both hands on the board For the slap of head-on waves.

Get inside, he said, w here they foam.

L ie down and feel the power. Sometime You'll just want to stand. Everyone Docs that on his own. I slide away, As intimidated here as on s hore.

I barely walk the same beach as Hawaiians, Whose bodies' burnish And long hair glossy as a crow's back Seem to grow from the white sand.

Is land boys and girls glide past On phosphorescent Fiberglass meteor trails.

Behind me, the roar says I'm out too far.

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...

I turn into a blind collision .

Bigger waves rise at sea. I have one Terror of water: the falling back.

I paddle frantically. Water stings my hand.

Nettle barbs, tentacles of s hort circ uit Hollow my fingertips! I stare down In the great salt darkness And fight the sensati o n to roll.

Goose flesh splashes my s ho ulders Until my knees slide their jellied j oints And lock.

I' m standing!

In the pit of a wave, throwing me Against stark, furrowed Diamond Head Like a science fiction movie Lurching toward Mars' surface. In that fine gaze, I swing on a moment 's hinge Above the sea.

6

Kamehameha Ridge Trail

The huge conch held to his lips Like a piccolo, Jo hn hones A deep resonance. " Shells speak what the body holds.

Now the mountains know it's us."

A spider crawls out of the conch And he brushes it off. "Black widows Like living here." The sign reads Kapu.

"Very strong ' Keep Out,' " he smiles. " My private trail."

Crushing lemon eucalyptus leaves For their fresh, dry sme ll, We duck trail-wide cobwebs And stop when the sun reveals Great m andalas Woven at the forest edge.

Risi ng steeply, we try Not to step on any growing thing And break thro ugh trees in two ho urs.

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Valley, sky, Kamehameha Ridge Trail ahead.

Res iliant New Zealand ironwoods, Their lacy needles "drawn like blow n cloud": Bas ho "couldn' t stop dreaming of roaming."

Fifteen hundred feet below, Oahu Country Club fairways Stretch up Nuuanu Valley. Punchbowl Cemetery further: a dead volcano's base Full of grass. Honolulu.

The broad crescent sweep of Pacific.

We hunker on Lookout Rock like baboons, Staring in the rain that shrinks our clothes To skin but for pocket lumps.

"Always lichen first," J ohn points Down the boulder's side.

"Moss, then grasses and trees Crack rocks like ice cubes.

In fifty thousand years, we'll be s itting On an ant hill."

I look down, following A sickle-shaped koa tree's leaf Across Nuuanu Valley Far as I can see. Green and brown Ti spots, ferns, ohia and sandalwood Pulse like the side of a living thing.

"It's like di ving, up here," J o hn says. ''I hang In the water, feel like never coming up. " I decide not to die.

Jo hn Muir once climbed a big pine To watch a snowstorm.

He'd have liked this rain. " J o hn Muir, I think, the right sequence of rock holds Coming to him on Mt. Ritter After total confusion.

Far off, From the molars of the Koolau Mo untains Rain sheets unfurl across the whole sky.

At once I recall this rain's sweep In the shimmer of northern lights And, soaked to the sk in, I s hiver.

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7

Last Day: To The Airport

Alic ia, Peter's girl Passes a paper sack of watermelon seeds, C hinese delicac ies she dried and seasoned In ginger and anise, her favorites.

She's never been to the main land.

"What of Nebraska?" she asks, Nesting faintly damp jasmine leis Soft mouths of blossom- around our necks.

"Peter won' t tell me." The breeze Of her voice flutt ers around us.

He stops Outside a rickety cemetery On a s plendid valley's slope Rising like a funnel wall, and says "Last century, I'm told, this was a mass grave For Chinese laborers. At night it's still filled With ghosts, visions - weird, wonderful Flute a nd drum music. Hawa iian burial caves High up on the eastern rim Charge Manoa Valley with spirit vibrations.

One afternoon of misty rain While I was taking pictures, a particularl y brilliant Full double rainbow Appeared over the cemetery.

The wooden gate, mountains, a windswept pine And the rainbows - all balanced in the viewfinder.

But the camera froze in mid-click, Broke forever."

He stops In his peculiar way, Seeming to hang with great effort , seeming Unable to say everything.

I understand, Peter.

This time I have jumped with you Into the fusion Of what appears, and what we feel We see - I want to say, but cannot.

I can not. Tro ut cries in my lap And sla ps the window at a tl y. Si lk Curtains of rain quiver over the car.

A large rainbow sags like a branch heavy with fruit , And we're late.

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NOTES MICHAEL AMONG, born in 1949 in Honolulu, is an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii. In his private mythology, he refers to himself as the Black Dog. EARLE BIRNEY is a distinguished Canadian poet and tireless world traveler whose home base is Vancouver. His latest book of poems is Rag & Bone Shop (Stewart and McClella nd, Toronto). He recently published a " poetry anti-textbook," The Cow Jumped over the Moon (Holt, Rinehart & Winston of Canada).

ROBERT BLY lives in Madison, Minnesota and edits The Se venties. Two of his most recent books are Jumping Out of Bed (Barre Publishers), which includes some Chinese adaptations, and Sleepers Joining Hands (Harper and Row). Some of his adaptations of Wang We i and P'ei Ti poems will a ppear in the next issue of Hawaii Uterary Review. Earlier versions of the two poems in this issue have appeared in New Letters and The Dragonfly.

CHRISTINE COOK has been living in Hawaii on and off for the past twelve years.

She is a graduate student at the University of Hawaii.

EARL COOPER is a University of Hawaii East-West Center grantee with an M.A. in C hinese literature. Much of his writing is set in his native Alaska.

SIV CEDERING FOX is wo rking with Gosta Friberg on an anthology of American Indian poetry tra nslated to Swedish, due in April of this year.

DAVID IGNATOW is poet-in-residence at Yo rk College of the C ity of New York and is also teaching at Columbia Univers ity School of the Arts. Two new books, Facing the Tree and Notebooks: 1934-7 I will be o ut sometime this year. His Selected Poems is scheduled for 1974.

EMI ISHII was born a nd raised on Maui. She recently completed an M.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Hawaii. She has traveled in Japan and plans to return fo r a year of study.

LOUIS J EN KINS has lived most of his life in the So uthwest, now lives in Duluth, Minnesota. He has just begun to publish and has some poems scheduled to appear in Dacotah Territory and The Seventies. The Minnesota Writers' Publishing House is bringing out his first boo k, The Well Digger's Wife. He is co-edito r of Steelhead, a small poetry magazine.

ROBERT L. JONES te aches at Western Michigan University in Kala mazoo. He lives in a little stone ho use "built 60 years ago by a dwarfish and gnarled lady chiropracto r." Some of his poems are due to appear in Choice.

GLENN KIMATA is an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii and avows to no personal history.

GALWAY KINNELL lives in Vermont and New York City. His latest volume, a book length poem called The Book of Nightmares, was published by HoughtonMifflin.

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NOTES LEONARD KUBO has only lived on is lands. Born on Maui, he spent five years o n Guam and Wake Island before moving to Oahu. He is an undergradu ate at the University of Hawaii and is planning his first cross-country trip of the U.S. ROBERT LAMANSK Y, a graduate student at the University of Hawai i, is from Kaneo he. Oahu. In the garden he tends, " all the weeds have grown flowers.''

IOLANI LUAHINE is the leading practitioner of ancient Hawaiian hula. She is curator of Hulihe'e Palace in Kailua-Kona, once a residence of Hawaii 's ali' i.

MARY ANN LYNCH teaches at the University of Hawaii. She has won awards for her photographs of local people and places. Her picture of lolani Luahine on page 2 was taken at Hana, Maui.

W.S. MERWIN has a new collection of poems coming out from Atheneum in February 1973.

DANA NAONE was raised near the Ko'olaupoko Mountains on Oahu. A senior at the University of Hawaii, she will edit the spring issue of the Hawaii Literary R eview.

GREGORY ORR's new book will be published by Harper and Row in the spring.

C.E. POVERMAN is living in Hawaii. A section from his novel, Deathmasks i~{ Xo. will soon appear in The Iowa Review.

CYNTHIA SA was born in Shanghai 23 years ago. She spent 17 years in Hong Kong and two more in England, and is now a student at the University of Hawaii working on adaptations of the 20th century Chinese poet Pin Hs in.

DENNIS SALEH has a chapbook, A Guide to Familiar American Incest, o ut from Triskelion Press. He is co-editor of Just What the Country Needs, Another Poetry Anthology (Wadsworth). Currently he is teaching at CSU San Diego.

AUDREY SAKI HARA is a third generation Okinawan from Kihei , Maui. She is a senior at the University of Hawaii, and has just begun to teach with Poets-in-theSchools.

GLENN SEGAWA spends a lot of time fishing from Oahu's coast. He says, " I like to feel my line in the sea." He is a recent graduate from the University of Hawaii.

JAMES SHIELDS' s hort story, "Candidate," 1972 winner of The Carolina Quarterly's Young Writer's Fiction Contest, will be reprinted in Free-Fire Zone, a collection of Vietnam war stories to be published by First Casualty Press. He will also appear soon in Evergreen Review. He is an East-West Center grantee st udying Japanese at the University of Hawaii.

R.D. SKILLINGS a fellow at the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Alternate Lives, a book of his stories, will be out this spring from Ithaca House.

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NOTES WILLIAM STAFFORD has a new collection of poems, Someday, Maybe, expected from Harper and Row this spring. He leaches at Lewis and Clark College.

DAVID STEINGASS has received a National Endowment for the Arts writing grant and has headed for Spain. His first book, Body Compass, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

TOMAS TRANSTROMER, born in 1931 , lives in Vasteras, Sweden, where he works as a psychologist a nd vocational counselor. He is one of the finest contemporary European poets. Recent books appearing in the U.S. include: 20 Poems of Tomas Transtromer (Seventies Press) and Night Vision (Lillabulero), both collections translated by Robert Bly, and Windows & Stones (U ni versity of Pittsburgh Press) translated by May Swenson with Leif Sjoberg.

JOH N UNTERECKER has recently returned from Ire land to teach at Columbia University. He is the author of the biography of Hart Crane, Voyager (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

JOHN WOODS' latest book, Turning to Look Back: Poems, 1955-70 was brought out last year by Indiana Uni versity Press. He has a book in the works entitled Medallions: New Poems.

HAROLD YOSHIKAWA, an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii, says only that he is " not afraid of being left with nothing to say."

Photo on page 88 courtesy of Bernice P. Bishop Museum

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