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Ray’s third new car in half as many years. Full cooler in the trunk, Ray sogging the beer as I solemnly chauffeur us through the bush and up the backroads, hardly cowpaths and hub-deep in mud. All day the sky lowers, clears, lowers again. Somewhere in the bush near Saint John there are uncles, a family, one mysterious brother who stayed on the land when Ray left for the cities. One week Ray is crocked. We’ve been through this before. Even, as a little girl, hands in my dress, Ah punka, you’s my Debby, come and ki me. Then the road ends in a yard full of dogs. Them’s Indian dogs, Ray says, lookit how they know me. And they do seem to know him, like I do. His odor— rank beef of fierce turtle pulled dripping from Metagoshe, and the inflammable mansmell: hair tonic, ashes, alcohol. Ray dances an old woman up in his arms. Fiddles reel in the phonograph and I sink apart in a corner, start knocking the Blue Ribbons down. Four generations of people live here. No one remembers Raymond Twobears. So what. The walls shiver, the old house caulked with mud sails back into the middle of Metagoshe. A three-foot-long snapper is hooked on a fishline, so mean that we do not dare wrestle him in but tow him to shore, heavy as an old engine. Then somehow Ray pries the beak open and shoves down a cherry bomb. Lights the string tongue. Headless and clenched in its armor, the snapper is lugged home in the trunk for tomorrow’s soup. Ray rolls it beneath a bush in the backyard and goes in to sleep his own head off. Tomorrow I find that the animal has dragged itself off. I follow torn tracks up a slight hill and over into a small stream that deepens and widens into a marsh. Ray finds his way back through the room into his arms. When the phonograph stops, he slumps hard in his hands and the boys and their old man fold him into the car where he curls around his bad heart, hearing how it knocks and rattles at the bars of his ribs to break out. Somehow we find our way back. Uncle Ray sings an old song to the body that pulls him toward home. The gray fins that his hands have become screw their bones in the dashboard. His face has the odd, calm patience of a child who has always let bad wounds alone, or a creature that has lived for a long time underwater. And the angels come lowering their slings and litters.

My father scolded us all for refusing his liquor. He kept buying tequila, and steak for the grill, until finally we joined him, making margaritas, cutting the fat off the bone. When he saw how we drank, my sister shredding the black labels into her glass while his remaining grandchildren dragged their thin bunk bed mattresses first out to the lawn to play then farther up the field to sleep next to her, I think it was then he changed, something in him died. He's gentler now, quiet, losing weight though every night he eats the same ice cream he always ate only now he's not drinking, he doesn't fall asleep with the spoon in his hand, he waits for my mother to come lie down with him.

“Dressed to die ... ” —Dylan Thomas Sister once of weeds & a dark water that held still In ditches reflecting the odd, Abstaining clouds that passed, & kept Their own counsel, we Were different, we kept our own counsel. Outside the tool shed in the noon heat, while our father Ground some piece of metal That would finally fit, with grease & an hour of pushing, The needs of the mysterious Ford tractor, We argued out, in adolescence, Whole systems of mathematics, ethics, And finally agreed that altruism, Whose long vowel sounded like the pigeons, Roosting stupidly & about to be shot In the barn, was impossible If one was born a Catholic. The Swedish Lutherans, whom the nuns called “Statue smashers,” the Japanese on Neighboring farms, were, we guessed, A little better off .... When I was twelve, I used to stare at weeds Along the road, at the way they kept trembling Long after a car had passed; Or at gnats in families hovering over Some rotting peaches, & wonder why it was I had been born a human. Why not a weed, or a gnat? Why not a horse, or a spider? And why an American? I did not think that anything could choose me To be a Larry Levis before there even was A Larry Levis. It was strange, but not strange enough To warrant some design. On the outside, The barn, with flaking paint, was still off-white. Inside, it was always dark, all the way up To the rafters where the pigeons moaned, I later thought, as if in sexual complaint, Or sexual abandon; I never found out which. When I walked in with a 12-gauge & started shooting, They fell, like gray fruit, at my feet— Fat, thumping things that grew quieter When their eyelids, a softer gray, closed, Part of the way, at least, And their friends or lovers flew out a kind of skylight Cut for loading hay. I don’t know, exactly, what happened then. Except my sister moved to Switzerland. My brother got a job With Colgate-Palmolive. He was selling soap in Lodi, California. Later, in his car, & dressed To die, or live again, forever, I drove to my own, first wedding. I smelled the stale boutonniere in my lapel, A deceased young flower. I wondered how my brother’s Buick Could go so fast, &, Still questioning, or catching, a last time, An old chill from childhood, I thought: why me, why her, & knew it wouldn’t last.

I had a boyfriend who told me stories about his family, how an argument once ended when his father seized a lit birthday cake in both hands and hurled it out a second-story window. That, I thought, was what a normal family was like: anger sent out across the sill, landing like a gift to decorate the sidewalk below. In mine it was fists and direct hits to the solar plexus, and nobody ever forgave anyone. But I believed the people in his stories really loved one another, even when they yelled and shoved their feet through cabinet doors, or held a chair like a bottle of cheap champagne, christening the wall, rungs exploding from their holes. I said it sounded harmless, the pomp and fury of the passionate. He said it was a curse being born Italian and Catholic and when he looked from that window what he saw was the moment rudely crushed. But all I could see was a gorgeous three-layer cake gliding like a battered ship down the sidewalk, the smoking candles broken, sunk deep in the icing, a few still burning.

Spanish captive, Hoahwah, married twin sisters. The one wife called Double turned into a snake after eating a nest of glossy eggs. Snake Woman still lives on Mt. Scott, sleeps facing west. The sun a white skull itself bathes her on the cedar breaks. In rectangular dreams she calls the young men grandson. The other sister Tsi-yee, named after a war deed (her father charged a cavalry office knocked him off his horse then lanced him to the prairie) bore three children: Tabe titah, Namnetse, and Sam Hoahwah. Lena, Sam Hoahwah’s favorite daughter ran off with an Arapaho from Canton. Sam sent his men after her on horseback, their ranch-hand-shadows overcast the Cheyenne and Arapaho Rez. Lena said: I ain’t comin back. She bled to death on a mattress after a miscarriage. Mother couldn’t remember Lena just the car ride to Post Oak Cemetery and watching wind in the pinwheels. Mother died the same age, fish-tailing into Comanche history in a Chevy Z-28 without car insurance. Great grandfather Sam Hoahwah first Indian in southwest Oklahoma to own a car got run over with his own Model-T. His Mexican cowboy-chauffeur forgot to take it out of gear when Sam crank-started the car. Not far from his own car, Uncle Fredrick was found dead in the weeds of Cache Road, keys missing. He sang gospels in Comanche, and backup on Robby Robertson’s Contact from the Underworld of RedBoy. (Uncle liked Levon Helm better.) Frederick Jr. caught ghost sickness bicycling across Post Oak Cemetery at night. He looked past his shoulder it twisted his face. The moon mocks him now. After the incident, his girlfriend fell in love with his cousin Rusty nicknamed Rabbit who loves fried baloney and calls it Indian Steak. Rabbit’s younger brother paints abstract horse murals in empty swimming pools, and images of a 20 foot long red talking snake who calls him grandson in his dreams.

The river is famous to the fish. The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek. The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom. The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors. The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured. I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets, sticky children in grocery lines, famous as the one who smiled back. I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.

’Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883, That a monster whale came to Dundee, Resolved for a few days to sport and play, And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay. So the monster whale did sport and play Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay, Until he was seen by some men one day, And they resolved to catch him without delay. When it came to be known a whale was seen in the Tay, Some men began to talk and to say, We must try and catch this monster of a whale, So come on, brave boys, and never say fail. Then the people together in crowds did run, Resolved to capture the whale and to have some fun! So small boats were launched on the silvery Tay, While the monster of the deep did sport and play. Oh! it was a most fearful and beautiful sight, To see it lashing the water with its tail all its might, And making the water ascend like a shower of hail, With one lash of its ugly and mighty tail. Then the water did descend on the men in the boats, Which wet their trousers and also their coats; But it only made them the more determined to catch the whale, But the whale shook at them his tail. Then the whale began to puff and to blow, While the men and the boats after him did go, Armed well with harpoons for the fray, Which they fired at him without dismay. And they laughed and grinned just like wild baboons, While they fired at him their sharp harpoons: But when struck with the harpoons he dived below, Which filled his pursuers’ hearts with woe: Because they guessed they had lost a prize, Which caused the tears to well up in their eyes; And in that their anticipations were only right, Because he sped on to Stonehaven with all his might: And was first seen by the crew of a Gourdon fishing boat, Which they thought was a big coble upturned afloat; But when they drew near they saw it was a whale, So they resolved to tow it ashore without fail. So they got a rope from each boat tied round his tail, And landed their burden at Stonehaven without fail; And when the people saw it their voices they did raise, Declaring that the brave fishermen deserved great praise. And my opinion is that God sent the whale in time of need, No matter what other people may think or what is their creed; I know fishermen in general are often very poor, And God in His goodness sent it to drive poverty from their door. So Mr John Wood has bought it for two hundred and twenty-six pound, And has brought it to Dundee all safe and all sound; Which measures 40 feet in length from the snout to the tail, So I advise the people far and near to see it without fail. Then hurrah! for the mighty monster whale, Which has got 17 feet 4 inches from tip to tip of a tail! Which can be seen for a sixpence or a shilling, That is to say, if the people all are willing.

Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Summer's joys are spoilt by use, And the enjoying of the Spring Fades as does its blossoming; Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, Blushing through the mist and dew, Cloys with tasting: What do then? Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, Spirit of a winter's night; When the soundless earth is muffled, And the caked snow is shuffled From the ploughboy's heavy shoon; When the Night doth meet the Noon In a dark conspiracy To banish Even from her sky. Sit thee there, and send abroad, With a mind self-overaw'd, Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her! She has vassals to attend her: She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth hath lost; She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather; All the buds and bells of May, From dewy sward or thorny spray; All the heaped Autumn's wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth: She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn: And, in the same moment, hark! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold; White-plum'd lillies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; And every leaf, and every flower Pearled with the self-same shower. Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep Meagre from its celled sleep; And the snake all winter-thin Cast on sunny bank its skin; Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, When the hen-bird's wing doth rest Quiet on her mossy nest; Then the hurry and alarm When the bee-hive casts its swarm; Acorns ripe down-pattering, While the autumn breezes sing. Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; Every thing is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter, Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh Of the Fancy's silken leash; Quickly break her prison-string And such joys as these she'll bring.— Let the winged Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.

Poet— Enchanting spirit!—at thy votive shrine I lowly bend a simple wreath to twine; O Come from the ideal world and fling Thy airy fingers o’er my rugged string; Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth The thrilling song that tells thy heavenly birth— Fancy— Happiness when from earth she fled I passed on her heavenward flight— “Take this crown,” the spirit said “Of heaven’s own golden light— To the sons of sorrow the token give, And bid them follow my steps and live!”— I took the crown from the snowy hand, It flashed like a living star; I turned this dark earth to a fairy land When I hither drive my car; But I placed the crown round my tresses bright, And man only saw its reflected light— Many a lovely dream I’ve given, And many a song divine; But never!—oh never—that gift of heaven Shall mortals temples twine— Hope and love in the circlet glow! ’Tis all too bright for a world of woe— Poet— Hist—Beautiful spirit!—why silent so soon? My ear drinks each word of thy magical tune; My lyre owns thy touch—and its tremulous strings Vibrate beneath the soft play of thy wings; Resume thy sweet lay, and reveal, ere we part Thy home lovely spirit—and say what thou art?”— Fancy— The gleam of a star thou cans’t not see— Of an eye ’neath its sleeping lid, The sound of a far off melody The voice of a stream that’s hid; Such must I still remain to thee A wonder and a mystery!— I live in the poet’s dream I flash on the painter’s eye; I dwell in the moon’s pale beam, In the depths of the star lit sky; I traverse the earth, the air, the main, And bind young hearts in my magic chain— I float on the fleecy cloud My voice is in ev’ry breeze; I speak in the tempest loud, In the sigh of the waving trees— To the sons of earth—in a mystic tone, I tell of a world more bright than their own!—

I Fanny was younger once than she is now, And prettier of course: I do not mean To say that there are wrinkles on her brow; Yet, to be candid, she is past eighteen— Perhaps past twenty—but the girl is shy About her age, and Heaven forbid that I II Should get myself in trouble by revealing A secret of this sort; I have too long Loved pretty women with a poet’s feeling, And when a boy, in day dream and in song, Have knelt me down and worshipp’d them: alas! They never thank’d me for’t—but let that pass. V Her father kept, some fifteen years ago, A retail dry-good shop in Chatham-street, And nursed his little earnings, sure though slow, Till, having muster’d wherewithal to meet The gaze of the great world, he breathed the air Of Pearl-street—and "set up" in Hanover-square. VI Money is power, ’tis said—I never tried; I’m but a poet—and bank-notes to me Are curiosities, as closely eyed, Whene’er I get them, as a stone would be, Toss’d from the moon on Doctor Mitchill’s table, Or classic brickbat from the tower of Babel. VII But he I sing of well has known and felt That money hath a power and a dominion; For when in Chatham-street the good man dwelt, No one would give a sous for his opinion. And though his neighbours were extremely civil, Yet, on the whole, they thought him—a poor devil, VIII A decent kind of person; one whose head Was not of brains particularly full; It was not known that he had ever said Any thing worth repeating—’twas a dull, Good, honest man—what Paulding’s muse would call A “cabbage head”—but he excelled them all IX In that most noble of the sciences, The art of making money; and he found The zeal for quizzing him grew less and less, As he grew richer; till upon the ground Of Pearl-street, treading proudly in the might And majesty of wealth, a sudden light X Flash’d like the midnight lightning on the eyes Of all who knew him; brilliant traits of mind, And genius, clear and countless as the dies Upon the peacock’s plumage; taste refined, Wisdom and wit, were his—perhaps much more. ’Twas strange they had not found it out before. XXV Dear to the exile is his native land, In memory’s twilight beauty seen afar: Dear to the broker is a note of hand, Collaterally secured—the polar star Is dear at midnight to the sailor’s eyes, And dear are Bristed’s volumes at “half price;” XXVI But dearer far to me each fairy minute Spent in that fond forgetfulness of grief; There is an airy web of magic in it, As in Othello’s pocket-handkerchief, Veiling the wrinkles on the brow of sorrow, The gathering gloom to-day, the thunder cloud to-morrow. XLI Since that wise pedant, Johnson, was in fashion, Manners have changed as well as moons; and he Would fret himself once more into a passion, Should he return (which heaven forbid!), and see, How strangely from his standard dictionary, The meaning of some words is made to vary. XLII For instance, an undress at present means The wearing a pelisse, a shawl, or so; Or any thing you please, in short, that screens The face, and hides the form from top to toe; Of power to brave a quizzing-glass, or storm— ’Tis worn in summer, when the weather’s warm. XLIII But a full dress is for a winter’s night. The most genteel is made of "woven air;" That kind of classic cobweb, soft and light, Which Lady Morgan’s Ida used to wear. And ladies, this aërial manner dress'd in, Look Eve-like, angel-like, and interesting.