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so it is death is the condition of infinite form— the rebellion of particulars, ourselves and each thing, even ideas, against that infinitude, is the story of finitude—the dream of the children harvested in a harvester-machine there are the real voice and the voice imagined and both have a reality, but the latter is out of it the ladder of things never accept gifts from the gods —Hesiod’s bitter-sweet sense of it— rings true and doesn’t settle the sea-shore down to where the heart breaks or is bronzed ‘I am happy,’ the man said, ‘because the toad of the morning is the worst thing I’ll find today’ an d CBC’s TV c ritic says, ‘television is the Shakespeare of the 20th century’ red lilies fall on the carpet and Art Tatum, drawing his art out of hymns, wanted more dissonance perfect there are knives in the air all around the poorly loved their lives follow life back into stone and they dream a sweeter consonance at the centre the art of a screaming and demented oyster

“Dreams Are the Royal Road to the Unconscious” —Freud The King’s Highway to the Dare-Not-Know —but I beg my rides and oh I know these boring roads where hundreds and hundreds of cars fade by in hundred-hundreds of flashing windows too bright too fast to see my face. I am steadfast long hours o’ the morning, I am so sad. An old-time trap, an ancient sad horse and his farmer stop by the way, they’ll take me one mile on my way —out of my way—is this the Way? I used to think I used to be happy, but is it possible to be happy? What is it like?—like Plato oh we’ll copy it at large and oh plan a city where all the distances (where? where?) are walking distances. June 1947

I I wandered through a house of many rooms. It grew darker and darker, Until, at last, I could only find my way By passing my fingers along the wall. Suddenly my hand shot through an open window, And the thorn of a rose I could not see Pricked it so sharply That I cried aloud. II I dug a grave under an oak-tree. With infinite care, I stamped my spade Into the heavy grass. The sod sucked it, And I drew it out with effort, Watching the steel run liquid in the moonlight As it came clear. I stooped, and dug, and never turned, For behind me, On the dried leaves, My own face lay like a white pebble, Waiting. III I gambled with a silver money. The dried seed-vessels of “honesty” Were stacked in front of me. Dry, white years slipping through my fingers One by one. One by one, gathered by the Croupier. “Faites vos jeux, Messieurs.” I staked on the red, And the black won. Dry years, Dead years; But I had a system, I always staked on the red. IV I painted the leaves of bushes red And shouted: “Fire! Fire!” But the neighbors only laughed. “We cannot warm our hands at them,” they said. Then they cut down my bushes, And made a bonfire, And danced about it. But I covered my face and wept, For ashes are not beautiful Even in the dawn. V I followed a procession of singing girls Who danced to the glitter of tambourines. Where the street turned at a lighted corner, I caught the purple dress of one of the dancers, But, as I grasped it, it tore, And the purple dye ran from it Like blood Upon the ground. VI I wished to post a letter, But although I paid much, Still the letter was overweight. “What is in this package?” said the clerk, “It is very heavy.” “Yes,” I said, “And yet it is only a dried fruit.” VII I had made a kite, On it I had pasted golden stars And white torches, And the tail was spotted scarlet like a tiger-lily, And very long. I flew my kite, And my soul was contented Watching it flash against the concave of the sky. My friends pointed at the clouds; They begged me to take in my kite. But I was happy Seeing the mirror shock of it Against the black clouds. Then the lightning came And struck the kite. It puffed—blazed—fell. But still I walked on, In the drowning rain, Slowly winding up the string.

You and I thigh deep in Suwannee River then in a bathtub. Spanish moss clogs the drain and a man carrying a green towel interrupts. We send him away once more knowing he'll return to watch. We're photographers shooting on location for Sylvia Plath's upcoming book,Savage Beauty—wrong poet or wrong book, I know, depending on how you look at it—however, I'm the one who is white this time, you're darker, maybe Quechua Indian or Spanish, like actor Antonio Banderas, with very defined stomach muscles and a slick throb of a penis. Years later I write a book about our affair. They bring me on one of those daytime talk shows, and before being reunited, we are kept in separate rooms, the television split screen, green-towel man in the audience. I'm still white, so are you, both of us middle-aged with freckles and strawberry-blonde hair. Later I'm the viewer at home thinking,Like hell they'll fall for each other.

Or a man who looks like him. I only know I call him Daddy (as all southern women do until the day we die). In my dreams he is still alive and this is not a comfort. I am my best when tragic. Grief becomes me. Daddy is more real in death, eyes dark, undimmed by the grave, smile less sincere. Matter clings to his thick eyebrows, his mouth spits mud when he tries to talk. He is candid. He tells me he liked my sisters better than me. Most times I search for him in a crowd of counterfeit Daddies. I look for pieces of him. An elbow. Black hair on the back of a pale neck. If I find him, I will say,Is that you? I know you this time.

a trembling old man dreams of a chinese garden a comical old man dreams of newspapers under his rabbi's hat a simple tavernkeeper dreams of icicles & fisheyes a sinister tavernkeeper dreams of puddles with an angel of the law in every drop the furrier's plump daughter is dreaming of a patch of old vanilla the furrier's foreign daughter is dreaming of a hat from which a marten hangs the proud accountant dreams of a trolleycar over the frozen river the reluctant accountant dreams of his feet sleep in a fresh pair of red socks the silly uncle dreams of a history written by a team of Spanish doctors the uncle in the next apartment dreams of the cost of Katmandu the retired gangster dreams of a right turn into a field of sacred lemons the dancing gangster dreams of a carriage, a donkey, & a hand that holds the ace of spades the grim man with a proposition dreams of his fingers entering a pair of gloves the excited man with a proposition dreams of the letter E torn from the title of his poem the remarkable elevator operator dreams of the marriage of karl marx the easy elevator operator dreams of a seashell at the entry to the thirteenth floor the candid photographer dreams of a wooden synagogue inside his brother's camera the secret photographer dreams of a school of golden herrings drifting out to sea the yiddish dadaist dreams of rare steaks & platonic pleasures the rosy dadaist dreams that a honeycomb is being squashed against his face the mysterious stranger dreams of a white tablecloth on which black threads are falling the stranger whom no one sees dreams of his sister holding up a string of pearls the asthmatic tax collector dreams of a row of sacred numbers the rebellious tax collector dreams of a bathhouse set among old trees the robust timber merchant dreams of a wind that blows inside the blacksmith's bellows the sobbing timber merchant dreams that his hands have pressed the buttocks of his dreaming bride the man with a fish between his teeth dreams of a famine for forty-five days the man dressed in white dreams of a potato the savage gentile dreams of a dancer with flashy lightbulbs on her shoes the repentant gentile dreams of her fingers bringing honey to his lips the fancy barber dreams that his hands massage the captain's neck the silent barber dreams of a rooster with a thread tied to one leg the salty bridegroom dreams of horses galloping they swirl around the bridegroom's house the genuflecting bridegroom dreams of what his bride slides through her fingers he sees it white & trembling in the early sabbath light the fat man in the derby dreams that it is spring that his seed soon will be falling through an empty sky the ecstatic man in the derby dreams that if he dreams it his words will turn into flowers

for barney bigard, arthur whetsol & lawrence brown you ain’t been blue . . . til you’ve had that mood indigo . . . —Ellington/Mills a young girl is somewhere waiting on the boy she loves; she has seen him every day for the last five years but today he will not come. an old man is down by a river standing at the spot where he saw his only son drown. a woman who never knew her mother but knew her mother did not love her is somewhere walking the streets. i travel to all these places, long to capture that which seems to be our shadow, swells with absurdity recalls jobs we can’t have, hotels we can’t enter restaurants which show us doors instead of menus. ours is a deep dyed emotion; marching bands ragtimers banjo pickers barrelhouse ballers dangerous dance halls segregated neighborhoods too proud to weep what it lives. we are that drama. we are this unusual arrangement that speaks for the millions, that is why this song is full of our dreams heard in late hours on our radios phonographs we love ourselves more sleep well at night rise from our beds to work hard and fancy future triumphs where we are wide awake in the middle of nightmare, this sound will carry us forward and speak to the world in a language that does not lie just a ditty i wrote down one day before the show while my mother prepared supper, and somewhere we were living this mood . . .

Myself I'm like a dress my mother made me, a fabric self split open with a sigh as I grew and—bewildered or proud or full of rage—patched with nicer material than we'd had before. I got the sense it was all wasted on me. But a needle's sharp to pierce, is itself pierced—so as to sew like I was taught. Like I learned: no dress could ever be beautiful or best if it had me in it. I was the stain in a place we couldn't fix. Having fallen on a slicer of some kind. Double-seamed, scabbed over, a new body pocket in the pattern. How to stitch up that wound right into the clean vertical rip in some on-sale flannelette? I'd never again be cold. Skin's holey not holy. In mad winter alone with drink, I think: tattoo needles don't use thread but ink to mark a place in this ever-moving skin and that wound is ornament. But who needs a mark to know what's marked? I would pray to the dark in the dark. But what did I ask for, what did I know to ask for? Nonfatal wounds: they're there when we die, deliquescent, vibrating like a drum skin just after each beat moves off. A part of music. A way a body keeps time, is time's keeper, vigilant till time up and goes to find another body. Another's warmth and shelter. Or related injuries. Anyone who hurts another was hurt that same way, so how far back behind our backs do we go to finally find the first hurt; whose finger points to say, "You! You're the one who god knows why started a cycle of unending pain," to someone's child in short pants? A baby just torn a hole in her amnion swirl? And what of me? I can't tell where my flesh meets the rest of me, ragbag full of rags, shot full of holes but that's just the way cotton and silk and everything I said up till now looks when it hits the air and is cried on. I'm so inside out I evaporated entirely already as August does, my actual dress shredded at the seams— unsalvageable. Who would ever love me like this? And just like that, I stopped thinking about it. I agree to meet you at the ferry heading to a place neither of us wants to go but both just said sure, I'll go...if you want! We should turn back, nobody said. Oh we should before it's too late, nobody said again, insistent this time.

Branches etch the film of ice on the studio window. A crow looks in, hopping and shrieking when I dance in my black tutu, trimmed with silver. The ballet master says,

“Shalom,” called the pink-shirted man in the Oceanic Terminal of Heathrow, and I snapped, “I do not want to talk to you.” Manic with fear, I extended one pointy-tipped shoe, tapped the message home. My cases bulged with the wrong clothes, every outfit trimmed with clipped English, fit for telephone jobs on Long Island. Rwanda, Algeria, and me declaring every kind of independence. My skirt and I were green, not the pretty pistachio that Jacqueline Kennedy wore, but the color copper develops in the sea, cold and unfortunate, the green of storms that have never squalled before. My hat, gloves, and I were pale, not plush like the warm blonde women settling in their seats and bubbling dipthongs to their husbands; not even poignant, like the champagne satin that Marilyn Monroe was buried in. Just neutral, stale as a biscuit, off as an old cup of milk. I was stubborn, I would do what I said and leave England. I would ride that El Al jet, mystery novel in hand and never grieve. Johnny Carson, The Jetsons, and me. A new wardrobe in cartoon hues. Meanwhile, my row-mate slipped off her court shoes, free toes wiggling in hose. “We all went to Israel, almost all of us on the flight, and are returning to South Carolina,” she explained in a drawl that frightened me more that the turbofan wailing beneath us. In her sundress, her stomach looked soft. Ungirdled? Does everyone chat with a twang, even the Jews? I do not want to talk, but here I am, midair. “Coffee,” I replied to the hostess, slowly. I will never wear slacks, but I can unfasten each word, open it wide.