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The general increase in green accords in me with a growing and specific gravity about — it hopes — to be undone like a bud. What kind of   leaf or the existence of  bugs or the always later rumor of   ravishment by wind or water don’t interest me. Sun does. Come close. Come slow. And look me again in the eyes as you do.

They jumped from the burning floors— one, two, a few more, higher, lower. The photograph halted them in life, and now keeps them above the earth toward the earth. Each is still complete, with a particular face and blood well hidden. There’s enough time for hair to come loose, for keys and coins to fall from pockets. They’re still within the air’s reach, within the compass of places that have just now opened. I can do only two things for them— describe this flight and not add a last line.

based on an old photograph bought in a shop at Half Moon Bay, summer, 1999 No sound, the whole thing. Unknown folk. People waving from a hillside of ripple grass to people below in an ongoing meadow. Side rows of trees waving in a tide of wind, and because what is moving is not moving, you catch a state of stasis. Opposite of this inactivity you imagine distant music and buzzing and crickets and that special hot smell of summer. To the garden past the Bay to the meadow, cliff sheltered with low clouds, offset by nodding thistle. Tatter-wort and Stinking Tommy along footpath worn down by locals. But who and why? In the photograph itself you’re now looking the other way to unknown clusters of houses. Where forces are balanced to near perfection. Who could live in such a great swollen silence and solitude? You hear church bells from Our Lady’s Tears breaking that silence nicely but just in the right way so silence continues as though nothing else matters day after day. And anyway, each face seems so familiar. What do you do when you wave back? You wave vigorously. You remember your own meadow, your cliffside and town, photographs forgotten, the halfhearted motion of your hand, your grandmother’s church-folk gathering on a Sunday afternoon in saintly quietness. You name the people whose names are not written on the back. You forgive them for wrapping themselves in silence. You enter house after house and open top-floor windows and you wave down to future generations like this.

Proof Sheets: 36 Prints These photographs are the index of an hour, memory clocked along negative margins: one through twelve, one through twelve, one through twelve. Even in a sequence there is choice, as when I chose not to photograph silences between words— choice of the parted lips— or choose now a sequence out of time. Scissors: chopped time. Rearrangement is good: You are characters in a drama called then. You are figures for mythology. I shall make Phaedra blonde, Theseus dark, Hippolytus blonde— blue eyes: blue eyes; that will do— Antigone singing in the graveyard wind, a twelve-year old who is Jocasta alternate weeks. Neither imagination nor my willing flesh can move this hand one fraction of an inch; a shift of stance could have juxtaposed mouths. The fixed frame is the drama: Hippolytus at banquet; Phaedra in her chamber, behind her that painting blurred into an omen, as if Theseus were Creon, Meleager, shepherd, faun; Oedipus barefoot, hairskin beast; Antigone maenad, Helen, Artemis. Only out-of-focus figures move.

(To Two Scots Lads) Lying in dug-outs, joking idly, wearily; Watching the candle guttering in the draught; Hearing the great shells go high over us, eerily Singing; how often have I turned over, and laughed With pity and pride, photographs of all colours, All sizes, subjects: khaki brothers in France; Or mother's faces worn with countless dolours; Or girls whose eyes were challenging and must dance, Though in a picture only, a common cheap Ill-taken card; and children—frozen, some (Babies) waiting on Dicky-bird to peep Out of the handkerchief that is his home (But he's so shy!). And some with bright looks, calling Delight across the miles of land and sea, That not the dread of barrage suddenly falling Could quite blot out—not mud nor lethargy. Smiles and triumphant careless laughter. O The pain of them, wide Earth's most sacred things! Lying in dug-outs, hearing the great shells slow Sailing mile-high, the heart mounts higher and sings. But once—O why did he keep that bitter token Of a dead Love?—that boy, who, suddenly moved, Showed me, his eyes wet, his low talk broken, A girl who better had not been beloved.

In the past we listened to photographs. They heard our voice speak. Alive, active. What had been distance was memory.    Dusk came, Pushed us forward,   emptying the laboratory   each night undisturbed by Erasure. In the city of X, they lived together. Always morose, her lips soothed him. The piano was arranged in the old manner, light entered the window, street lamps at the single tree. Emotion evoked by a single light on a subject is not transferable to photographs of the improved city. The camera, once commented freely amid rivering and lost gutters of treeless parks or avenue. The old camera refused to penetrate the unknown. Its heart was soft, unreliable. Now distributed is photography of new government building. We are forbidden to observe despair silent in old photographs.

photos of her father in enemy uniform— the taste of almonds

When the world is reduced to a single dark wood for our two pairs of dazzled eyes — to a beach for two faithful children — to a musical house for our clear understanding — then I shall find you. When there is only one old man on earth, lonely, peaceful, handsome, living in unsurpassed luxury, then I am at your feet. When I have realized all your memories, — when I am the girl who can tie your hands, — then I will stifle you. When we are very strong, who draws back? or very happy, who collapses from ridicule? When we are very bad, what can they do to us. Dress up, dance, laugh. I will never be able to throw Love out of the window. — Comrade of mine, beggar girl, monstrous child! How little you care about the wretched women, and the machinations and my embarrassment. Join us with your impossible voice, oh your voice! the one flatterer of this base despair. *    *    * A dark morning in July. The taste of ashes in the air, the smell of wood sweating in the hearth, steeped flowers, the devastation of paths, drizzle over the canals in the fields, why not already playthings and incense? *    *    * I stretched out ropes from spire to spire; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. *    *    * The high pond is constantly streaming. What witch will rise up against the white sunset? What purple flowers are going to descend? *    *    * While public funds disappear in brotherly celebrations, a bell of pink are rings in the clouds. *    *    * Arousing a pleasant taste of Chinese ink, a black powder gently rains on my night, — I lower the jets of the chandelier, throw myself on the bed, and turning toward thedark, I see you, O my daughters and queens! *    *    *

Stilled as in image, at dawn sliding into blue harbor, boats clang, where does he the man I imagine gripping several ropes return from. Is he conflicted, does he perceive the sky oscillating like a dimmer machine, a mouth, a war, language not declaring its most effective self,bellum grazing ever nearer to beauty, a possible apotheosis how what is left of sense is comfort. Not inebriated much anymore, I rented a lawn to stand in with you, crueler was always singing to our mutual forks, knives. Our translation of a subject drones on unblinking, something black for him returning, his forearms there laid themselves down, ships gone out another pale-plated night.

My husband was in the CIA. That’s the kind of woman I am. Lived all over Asia in suites decked out for the embassy staff, lounged around pools with sweet Singapore Slings, but now that I’m on my own, I can’t stand to waste a minute, not a breath. You may know my regular work at Helen’s Mademoiselle Beauty Nook downtown, but on the side I help women trim their belly fat. “Lose weight now, ask me how.” A thin American girl is a happy one, I always say. Oprah, too, but the drugs witch doctors sell can kill brain cells quicker than liquor. And your will, your liver. Listen, herbs are just what you need to cut that cellulite. I learned that in the Orient. I had spare time to spare and paid attention. Embrace herbs and exercise daily with a proper purge, just like the monks of Buddha. Tablets help, and fruit shakes, too, make you frisky as a prime-time preacher, but here’s my recent love and pleasure: invention. True, I mixed a chemical rinse that made great colors like the ao dais in Saigon, but some of the girls said it burned. Then I worked with Gene Graddick on a special quick perm you can get wet, but he cut out before we got it perfectly perfected. Beauty, though, that’s the ticket. I knew that even in Nam, while Jim-ass was off on his secret missions. The new machine I’m the mother of will move senior citizens and the, you know, “crippled” gals to the swivel chair without a hitch. I saw too many women, men, and sad children with stiff legs (or one or none) who couldn’t move after one government or another gave invitations to mortar fire or a claymore mine. With this machine I could prop them straight and wet-cut any willing guinea pig—pardon my calling the handicapped that—blow dry and comb them out with no inconvenience. My prototype is getting made in a LaGrange body shop this minute, if Bish is working late like he promised, and I aim to franchise, since Jim left me flat busted—well, you can see that’s a figure of speech—with back bills piled to the ceiling. The government has laws that business can’t fairly slight the challenged, so if I get it right, it’s got to sell. I can’t tell you how it works, you know. I learned secrecy from an expert, covert fool. It’s called “The Phyllis,” after me. What’s wrong with that? It’s no brag if you really did it. Hell—excuse my French—you know Snake Grillis of Snake and the Grass? He can pick the fiddle better than any man alive, and says so on stage. It’s no lie, so let him waller in it, I say. Look, I’m salt of the earth and have all the right attitudes and skills, not that selfish royal act my Jim put on when we went to the market. He called the people “slants” and laughed when they didn’t savvy. It’s no wonder he carried a Colt in his belt; they could tell how superior he felt, and they hated him hard. That asshole—pardon my French, but it’s so. No thanks, I stick to coffee. Hard stuff was what my ex used to wet his whistle and make him sharp for following spies, and cocaine, too, I suspect. Myself, I don’t need a jumpstart when loving’s on my mind. I got a tummy tuck, a boob job, a wardrobe straight from Penney’s Gay Parisian line. You’re a devil, but you smile like a G.I. on leave, and I can cure your entire cowlick problem. I’ve got a chair and a whole outfit at home, plus a queen waterbed and a Sony VCR on credit. I’m maxed out! Grab your jacket, buckaroo, and to hell with any sour memories. I’ve got bourbon and branch, black lace, and oodles of time. I’ve got a Walther in my purse and boudoir kung fu tricks for two. I’m here now and just for you. Call me Phyllis or The Phyllis or Boo, then just call me in time for breakfast. Ain’t this a lucky rendezvous?