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“I know kung fu.” It won’t bring back the world. 5:15 a.m.: I wake from another dream, the same as every dream. A man builds a ship in my chest. Each of the sailors carries by her breast a picture of her sister. The ship is not the image of a ship. Beyond its sails there are no stars. The water is only water because it’s black. 5:15 a.m. Perhaps you’ve seen me practicing my moves in the empty prison yard and wondered whether you were the dreamer conjuring me into existence from the bare desire to caress a phantom ship and my death the death of your desire.

banging around in a cigarette      she isn’t “in love” my dream a drink with Ira Hayes we discuss the code of the west my hands make love to my body when my arms are around you you never tell me your name and I am forced to write “belly” when I mean “love” Au revoir, scene! I waken, read, write long letters and wander restlessly when leaves are blowing my dream a crumpled horn in advance of the broken arm she murmurs of signs to her fingers weeps in the morning to waken so shackled with love Not me. I like to beat people up. My dream a white tree

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry. — The Zombies I Man, if you’re dead, why are you leading me to drink after five sober years? Sonny, can I get a witness? I had a Snow White vision of the prodigal son returning to America that day of my final hangover. I tried to clear the mixture of cobwebs and shooting stars from my brain with spit-warm Budweiser, but the hair of the dog just was not doing the trick. I ended up pummeling myself seven times that day and named each egg white load for a Disney dwarf. The first was Dopey. The final was Sleepy, I think, or Droopy. II Last year you scrawled a letter to me about your first and final visit to the Vietnam Memorial and how your eyes reflected off the shiny black stone and shot back into your brain like guidons unfurling the stench of cordite and the boy screams of men whose souls evaporated into morning mists over blue-green jungles. You had to be there, you said. That’s where you caught the cancer, you said. III Sonny. Tonight I had a dream of Mom’s death twenty years too late and now my eyes will not close like I imagine the lid on her cheap casket did. I was not there when she died. Home on leave from Basic Training, you stood in for me because I was running scared through the drugged-out alleys of America, hiding from those Asian shadows that would finally ace you and now, now in the dark victory of your Agent Orange cancer, it gives me not one ounce of ease to say fuck Nixon and Kissinger, fuck all the generals and all the armies of God and fuck me, twenty years too late. IV History is history and thank God for that. When we were wise-ass American boys in our fifth grade geography class, we tittered over the prurient-sounding waves of Lake Titticaca …Titti … ca-ca and we never even had the slightest clue that Che was camping out en las montañas de Bolivia … We never knew American chemists would kill you slicker than slant-eyed bullets. V Damn Sonny. Five sober years done squeaked by like a silent fart and I’m on autopilot, sitting in a bar hoisting suds with ghosts, yours and my slowly evolving own. When we were seventeen with fake I.D.’s, we got into the Bucket of Blood in Virginia City and slurped sloe gin fizzes while the innocent jukebox blared “She’s Not There” by the Zombies. Later that drunken night you puked purple splotches onto my new, white Levis and a short, few years into your future this lost nation would award you two purple hearts, one of which your mother pressed into my hand that bright day we filed you under dry desert dirt.

Large moon the deep orange of embers. Also the scent. The griefs of others—beautiful, at a distance.

Soon, O Ianthe! life is o’er, And sooner beauty’s heavenly smile: Grant only (and I ask no more), Let love remain that little while.

Soon the summer Now the pleasant purgatory Of spring is over, Soon the choking Humidity In the city On the fire escapes In a sleeveless T-shirt Smoking a cigar In tune with the tremor Of the mindless yellow Commercial traffic Moving in the city, Where no one really Buys a car, American Or otherwise, Where we will, As Rilke said we would Where we will Wake, read, write Long letters And in the avenues Wander restlessly To and fro On foot in The humidity, Where soon I’ll shower, dress, Take the dog out for a piss, And mail this.

Barely tolerated, living on the margin In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso Before it was time to start all over again. There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils, And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was considering The colorful but small monster near her toe, as though wondering whether forgetting The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution. And then there always came a time when Happy Hooligan in his rusted green automobile Came plowing down the course, just to make sure everything was O.K., Only by that time we were in another chapter and confused About how to receive this latest piece of information. Was it information? Weren’t we rather acting this out For someone else’s benefit, thoughts in a mind With room enough and to spare for our little problems (so they began to seem), Our daily quandary about food and the rent and bills to be paid? To reduce all this to a small variant, To step free at last, minuscule on the gigantic plateau— This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free. Alas, the summer’s energy wanes quickly, A moment and it is gone. And no longer May we make the necessary arrangements, simple as they are. Our star was brighter perhaps when it had water in it. Now there is no question even of that, but only Of holding on to the hard earth so as not to get thrown off, With an occasional dream, a vision: a robin flies across The upper corner of the window, you brush your hair away And cannot quite see, or a wound will flash Against the sweet faces of the others, something like: This is what you wanted to hear, so why Did you think of listening to something else? We are all talkers It is true, but underneath the talk lies The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor. These then were some hazards of the course, Yet though we knew the course was hazards and nothing else It was still a shock when, almost a quarter of a century later, The clarity of the rules dawned on you for the first time. They were the players, and we who had struggled at the game Were merely spectators, though subject to its vicissitudes And moving with it out of the tearful stadium, borne on shoulders, at last. Night after night this message returns, repeated In the flickering bulbs of the sky, raised past us, taken away from us, Yet ours over and over until the end that is past truth, The being of our sentences, in the climate that fostered them, Not ours to own, like a book, but to be with, and sometimes To be without, alone and desperate. But the fantasy makes it ours, a kind of fence-sitting Raised to the level of an esthetic ideal. These were moments, years, Solid with reality, faces, namable events, kisses, heroic acts, But like the friendly beginning of a geometrical progression Not too reassuring, as though meaning could be cast aside some day When it had been outgrown. Better, you said, to stay cowering Like this in the early lessons, since the promise of learning Is a delusion, and I agreed, adding that Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, That the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint None of us ever graduates from college, For time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up Is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate. And you see, both of us were right, though nothing Has somehow come to nothing; the avatars Of our conforming to the rules and living Around the home have made—well, in a sense, “good citizens” of us, Brushing the teeth and all that, and learning to accept The charity of the hard moments as they are doled out, For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

Do Keara [For Keara] stuaim Ba cheart bhur gcur ó aithne, tá an tír róbheag, teanga níos stuama a chleachtadh nó seasamh siar ón tús. Ach anois thar aon am eile, níl teacht ná dul ón tosach. Ag cóisir daoibh in íoslach tí, thug tú úll dó in áit osclóra. Bíonn dúil agus dúil ann, a shonc féin, ba mheidhreach: Bíonn diúltú agus diúltú ann — No thanks, I’ve read the Bible. cant Wipe your memory: the country’s too small, practice holding your tongue or stand back from the thing. As much as ever now there’s no getting past how she slid with aplomb not a corkscrew but an apple into his palm. There’s come-ons, and come-ons and then some. His comeback was winsome. There’s no thanks, and no-thanks-but-frisky— If that makes me Adam, then you must be ... an chéad phlaic I seile an sciatháin leathair, tá ceimiceán a choisceann an fhuil ar théachtadh: De nádúr an ainmhí é gur luaithe tál ná téarnamh. the first mouthful There’s a chemical in bats’ saliva that stops our blood congealing. The animal in us puts giving before healing. an dara plaic Ba gheall le moladh an dara priocadh: gur chaith tú uait gan chothrom fola crúbáil na hoíche faoi sholas obann: tabhairt na doraidh go glé, dá dtabharfaí the second mouthful Praise be, you thought, when you gave up the ghost. But where’s the glory with no blood lost? The nails of the night beneath a bare bulb: your challenge spotlit. Now take it up. an tríú plaic, nó ath-quoof i Aithníonn sé faoin am seo, an fear i do theannta, nach ligtear as do cheann iad, na cuimhní cinn a roinntear, go mbíodh colúir theachtaireachta aige féin is a athair is go ndéanaidís blaoscanna uibhe a théamh chun gob an éin a neartú. Thug is tugann leat, an taom a bhuail an buachaill, é ag fanacht in oirchill is na blaoscáin á róstadh, gur fhág sé faoin teas rófhada iad— d’aon turas—a chroí ina bhéal aige— le teann spóirt, b’fhéidir, féachaint, dá ainneoin féin, mar a bheadh acu dá bpléascadh blaosc san oigheann air. the third mouthful (quoof: slight return i) Pillow-talker, as you’d be the first to admit, a cat let out of the bag won’t go back in. Now she’s up to speed on how you and your dad used eggshells to harden the beaks of your pigeons, nodding off over them, billing and cooing, waiting for the shells to roast. Once you left them under the heat on purpose, for devilment maybe—come on, come on—curious what might happen if left in too long. an ceathrú plaic nó ath-quoof ii Aithníodh sé thairis— leathchéile na cuilte, nach slogadh gan chogaint í, an chuimhne cinn leathoilte. Súil siar is túisce a bhuaileann an sprioc: an buachaill nach gcodlaíodh nuair ba thrúig oilc an tost. Níorbh fhéidir a shuaimhniú go gcloiseadh fead na traenach: má bhí tiománaí ina dhúiseacht, ní raibh sé ina aonar. the fourth mouthful (quoof: slight return ii) Something else to chew on besides the tales he’s spun: he should recognize, no matter where, his duvet twin. For the boy keeping watch when sleep would be nobler, the place to look may be over his shoulder. Who can’t rest until the train whistle blows: if the driver is out there he can’t be alone. iarfhocal Bhí a fhios aici, an bhean sin, nárbh ionann súil is éisteacht. Is d’admhódh de chogar claon gur fhadaigh tost an béaldath. Sop préacháin a deirtí le bean a chaitheadh fear uaidh, píosa tuí a d’ardaigh an ghaoth nuair nár oir go beacht don éinín. afterword Well she knew that holding an eye isn’t having an ear; and beyond that she knew how silence improves lipstick. A woman a man drops is called a crow’s wisp: something the wind takes when a bird lets it slip. Translated from the Irish

the wind hits and returns     it is easy to personify a new place and language,     but the new body stings these men with green eyelids, drawing their worth, it was rumoured, from Egypt, knew the work is part of it     a power arrived at the same thirst he borrowed a head for a day but which head     the phrases tremble in the other mouth    it is true and false     the veil of her face, an old porcelain, not for the hand to comfort     she moved beyond the sop one gave for affection    ‘My success has been to keep duty and love alive’    she said her hand waved with the power of disease      Sophia Nichols of the orchards, the deserts, the flooded ponds and games wherein the moon sought our feet died with a mouth full of tumour      it is true and false   the moon flowers  ( that is Blake talking ) tonight it is the half blossom and the stars too above this mud are from the other mouth     this city untouched     the streets, Hotel Lyric have a foreignness, a place outside a window     a sound of bees pulling the lilac     above cement this wonder ( the other mouth ) that crickets were men once who so loved the muses they forgot to eat     now fed on thistles, the language must sting    the flesh turn to a dew ( the other mouth ) the loss,    some glistening blood on the leaves of the mirror plant    Sophia Nichols of the story, the goldenrod, of the snake that entered the cage and ate the captured sparrows, the telegraph keys, pale yellow paper,     of the Odyssey and the homing stories of the soul,     the sea imaginary, light and foaming green on the rocks  dark further out as the eye of the cat if she would be free from words, she would free me   even in the night there are birds summoned by words

It’s like I thought it would be. Absolute silence. Just me and my poem. But, as I stand onstage preparing to start, I realize the audience is quiet because they want to hear me. Silence isn’t scary. It’s like Mr. Carey said, silence is my chance. And so I speak, slowly and clearly, and I don’t see the faces in front of me. I see the images of my poem, and I think only of what I’m saying and how much it means to me. My voice grows stronger and I don’t have to struggle to remember the words. I know them because I wrote them.