Alicia Ostriker

Now here is a typical children’s story that happens in gorgeous October when the mothers are coming in the afternoon, wearing brisk boots and windy skirts to pick up the little children from the day care center Frost in the air the maples golden and crimson my son in a leaf pile in the playground dreaming I am late, the playground is almost empty, my husband will kill me I gather my son to go home, he forgets his sweater in the playground and I send him back he dawdles, he is playing with leaves in his mind, it is already a quarter to six, will you come on I say and hurry along the corridor, there are yellow and blue rocket paintings, but I feel bad and ask what did you do today, do you recognize this story, the way he stands and picks his nose, move I say, do you want dinner or not I’m going to make a nice dinner, fried chicken I wheedle, so could you please walk a little faster, okay, I walk a little faster and get upstairs myself, pivot on boot-heel, nobody there, he is putting something in his mouth, his sable eyelashes downcast, and I am swooping down the stairwell screaming damn you that’s filthy I told you not before dinner We are climbing the stairs and I am crying, my son is not crying I have shaken him, I have pried the sweet from his cheek I have slapped his cheek like a woman slapping a carpet with all my strength mothers are very strong he is too young to do anything about this will not remember he remembers it The mind is a leaf pile where you can bury anything, pain, the image of a woman who wears a necklace of skulls, a screaming woman you dig quickly and deposit the pulpy thing you drop leaves on it and it stays there, that is the story that is sticking in my mind as we push the exit door, and run through the evening wind to my car where I jerk the gearshift and pick up a little speed, going along this neat suburban avenue full of maples the mark of my hand a blush on my son’s cheek.

In every life there’s a moment or two when the self disappears, the cruel wound takes over, and then again at times we are filled with sky or with birds or simply with the sugary tea on the table said the old woman I know what you mean said the tulip about epiphanies for instance a cloudless April sky the approach of a butterfly but as to the disappearing self no I have not yet experienced that You are creating distinctions that do not exist in reality where “self” and “not-self” are like salt in ocean, cloud in sky oxygen in fire said the philosophical dog under the table scratching his balls

—for Paul Metcalf A linear projection: a route. It crosses The ocean in many ships. Arriving in the new Land, it cuts through and down forests and it Keeps moving. Terrain: Rock, weaponry. Dark trees, mastery. Grass, to yield. Earth, Reproachful. Fox, bear, coon, wildcat Prowl gloomily, it kills them, it skins them, Its language alters, no account varmint, its Teeth set, nothing defeats its obsession, it becomes A snake in the reedy river. Spits and prays, Keeps moving. Behind it, a steel track. Cold, Permanent. Not permanent. It will decay. This Does not matter, it does not actually care, Murdering the buffalo, driving the laggard regiments, The caring was a necessary myth, an eagle like A speck in heaven dives. The line believes That the entire wrinkled mountain range is the Eagle’s nest, and everything tumbles in place. It buries its balls at Wounded Knee, it rushes Gold, it gambles. It buys plastics. Another Ocean stops it. Soon, soon, up by its roots, Severed, irrecoverably torn, that does not matter, It decides, perpendicular from here: escape. A prior circle: a mouth. It is nowhere, Everywhere, swollen, warm. Expanding and contracting It absorbs and projects children, jungles, Black shoes, pennies, blood. It speaks Too many dark, suffering languages. Reaching a hand Toward its throat, you disappear entirely. No Wonder you fear this bleeding pulse, no wonder.

As if there could be a world Of absolute innocence In which we forget ourselves The owners throw sticks And half-bald tennis balls Toward the surf And the happy dogs leap after them As if catapulted— Black dogs, tan dogs, Tubes of glorious muscle— Pursuing pleasure More than obedience They race, skid to a halt in the wet sand, Sometimes they'll plunge straight into The foaming breakers Like diving birds, letting the green turbulence Toss them, until they snap and sink Teeth into floating wood Then bound back to their owners Shining wet, with passionate speed For nothing, For absolutely nothing but joy.

— for David Lehman Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. —William Wordsworth Going to hell so many times tears it Which explains poetry. —Jack Spicer The day the war against Iraq begins I’m photographing the yellow daffodils With their outstretched arms and ruffled cups Blowing in the wind of Jesus Green Edging the lush grassy moving river Along with the swans and ducks Under a soft March Cambridge sky Embellishing the earth like a hand Starting to illustrate a children’s book Where people in light clothes come out To play, to frisk and run about With their lovers, friends, animals, and children As down every stony back road of history They’ve always done in the peaceful springs —Which in a sense is also hell because The daffodils do look as if they dance And make some of us in the park want to dance And breathe deeply and I know that Being able to eat and incorporate beauty like this I am privileged and by that token can Taste pain, roll it on my tongue, it’s good The cruel wars are good the stupidity is good, The primates hiding in their caves are very good, They do their best, which explains poetry. What explains poetry is that life is hard But better than the alternatives, The no and the nothing. Look at this light And color, a splash of brilliant yellow Punctuating an emerald text, white swans And mottled brown ducks floating quietly along Whole and alive, like an untorn language That lacks nothing, that excludes Nothing. Period. Don’t you think It is our business to defend it Even the day our masters start a war? To defend the day we see the daffodils?

To be blessed said the old woman is to live and work so hard God’s love washes right through you like milk through a cow To be blessed said the dark red tulip is to knock their eyes out with the slug of lust implied by your up-ended skirt To be blessed said the dog is to have a pinch of God inside you and all the other dogs can smell it

The optimists among us taking heart because it is spring skip along attending their meetings signing their e-mail petitions marching with their satiric signs singing their we shall overcome songs posting their pungent twitters and blogs believing in a better world for no good reason I envy them said the old woman The seasons go round they go round and around said the tulip dancing among her friends in their brown bed in the sun in the April breeze under a maple canopy that was also dancing only with greater motions casting greater shadows and the grass hardly stirring What a concerto of good stinks said the dog trotting along Riverside Drive in the early spring afternoon sniffing this way and that how gratifying the cellos of the river the tubas of the traffic the trombones of the leafing elms with the legato of my rivals’ piss at their feet and the leftover meat and grease singing along in all the wastebaskets

Of course we failed, by succeeding. The fiery cherub becomes his smothering. A greedy heart dives into a dream Of power or truth, and wakes up middle-aged In some committee room. It is eating paper instead of God. We two are one, my bird, this is a wedding. When love was war, you swore you’d burn Your life and die at thirty-five. I said good riddance, Bright hairy boy, I will beat you, down, Tear you to monkey shreds, survive like earth, Owl-eyed, because I wanted to see everything Black and permanent and kill you with your theories. We used to wake up sweaty and entangled. Thirty, home, and work. We cohabit in a functioning machine. There is violence, somewhere else. Do we wish this? It occurs, The flayed combatant, the dismembered child, The instruments in the basement. We must wish it. See, Between us is peace, our babies are plump, I know you, I caress you, I fail you. My faith adheres In nothing. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me.