Charles Simic

Shoes, secret face of my inner life: Two gaping toothless mouths, Two partly decomposed animal skins Smelling of mice nests. My brother and sister who died at birth Continuing their existence in you, Guiding my life Toward their incomprehensible innocence. What use are books to me When in you it is possible to read The Gospel of my life on earth And still beyond, of things to come? I want to proclaim the religion I have devised for your perfect humility And the strange church I am building With you as the altar. Ascetic and maternal, you endure: Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men, With your mute patience, forming The only true likeness of myself.

You must come to them sideways In rooms webbed in shadow, Sneak a view of their emptiness Without them catching A glimpse of you in return. The secret is, Even the empty bed is a burden to them, A pretense. They are more themselves keeping The company of a blank wall, The company of time and eternity Which, begging your pardon, Cast no image As they admire themselves in the mirror, While you stand to the side Pulling a hanky out To wipe your brow surreptitiously.

There was a melon fresh from the garden So ripe the knife slurped As it cut it into six slices. The children were going back to school. Their mother, passing out paper plates, Would not live to see the leaves fall. I remember a hornet, too, that flew in Through the open window Mad to taste the sweet fruit While we ducked and screamed, Covered our heads and faces, And sat laughing after it was gone.

I am the last Napoleonic soldier. It’s almost two hundred years later and I am still retreating from Moscow. The road is lined with white birch trees and the mud comes up to my knees. The one-eyed woman wants to sell me a chicken, and I don’t even have any clothes on. The Germans are going one way; I am going the other. The Russians are going still another way and waving good-by. I have a ceremonial saber. I use it to cut my hair, which is four feet long.

Your friend has died, with whom You roamed the streets, At all hours, talking philosophy. So, today you went alone, Stopping often to change places With your imaginary companion, And argue back against yourself On the subject of appearances: The world we see in our heads And the world we see daily, So difficult to tell apart When grief and sorrow bow us over. You two often got so carried away You found yourselves in strange neighborhoods Lost among unfriendly folk, Having to ask for directions While on the verge of a supreme insight, Repeating your question To an old woman or a child Both of whom may have been deaf and dumb. What was that fragment of Heraclitus You were trying to remember As you stepped on the butcher’s cat? Meantime, you yourself were lost Between someone’s new black shoe Left on the sidewalk And the sudden terror and exhilaration At the sight of a girl Dressed up for a night of dancing Speeding by on roller skates.

This strange thing must have crept Right out of hell. It resembles a bird’s foot Worn around the cannibal’s neck. As you hold it in your hand, As you stab with it into a piece of meat, It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird: Its head which like your fist Is large, bald, beakless, and blind.

How much death works, No one knows what a long Day he puts in. The little Wife always alone Ironing death’s laundry. The beautiful daughters Setting death’s supper table. The neighbors playing Pinochle in the backyard Or just sitting on the steps Drinking beer. Death, Meanwhile, in a strange Part of town looking for Someone with a bad cough, But the address is somehow wrong, Even death can’t figure it out Among all the locked doors ... And the rain beginning to fall. Long windy night ahead. Death with not even a newspaper To cover his head, not even A dime to call the one pining away, Undressing slowly, sleepily, And stretching naked On death’s side of the bed.

On the first page of my dreambook It’s always evening In an occupied country. Hour before the curfew. A small provincial city. The houses all dark. The storefronts gutted. I am on a street corner Where I shouldn’t be. Alone and coatless I have gone out to look For a black dog who answers to my whistle. I have a kind of Halloween mask Which I am afraid to put on.

Great are the Hittites. Their ears have mice and mice have holes. Their dogs bury themselves and leave the bones To guard the house. A single weed holds all their storms Until the spiderwebs spread over the heavens. There are bits of straw in their lakes and rivers Looking for drowned men. When a camel won’t pass Through the eye of one of their needles, They tie a house to its tail. Great are the Hittites. Their fathers are in cradles, their newborn make war. To them lead floats, a leaf sinks. Their god is the size Of a mustard seed so that he can be quickly eaten. They also piss against the wind, Pour water in a leaky bucket. Strike two tears to make fire, And have tongues with bones in them, Bones of a wolf gnawed by lambs. * They are also called mound builders, They are called Asiatic horses That will drink on the Rhine, they are called My grandmother’s fortune-telling, they are called You can’t take it to the grave with you. It’s that hum in your left ear, A sigh coming from deep within you, A dream in which you keep falling forever, The hour in which you sit up in bed As though someone has shouted your name. No one knows why the Hittites exist, Still, when two are whispering One of them is listening. Did they catch the falling knife? They caught it like a fly with closed mouths. Did they balance the last egg? They struck the egg with a bone so it won’t howl. Did they wait for dead man’s shoes? The shoes went in at one ear and out the other. Did they wipe the blood from their mousetraps? They burnt the blood to warm themselves. Are they cold with no pockets in their shrouds? If the sky falls, they shall have clouds for supper. What do they have for us To put in our pipes and smoke? They have the braid of a beautiful girl That drew a team of cattle And the engraving of him who slept With dogs and rose with fleas Searching for its trace in the sky. * And so there are fewer and fewer of them now. Who wrote their name on paper And burnt the paper? Who put snake bones In their pillows? Who threw nail parings In their soup? Who made them walk Under the ladder? Who stuck pins In their snapshots? The wart of warts and his brother evil eye. Bone-lazy and her sister rabbit’s-foot. Cross-your-fingers and their father dog star. Knock-on-wood and his mother hellfire. Because the tail can’t wag the cow. Because the woods can’t fly to the dove. Because the stones haven’t said their last word. Because dunghills rise and empires fall. * They are leaving behind All the silver spoons Found inside their throats at birth, A hand they bit because it fed them, Two rats from a ship that is still sinking, A collection of various split hairs, The leaf they turned over too late. * All that salt cast over the shoulder, All that bloody meat traveling under the saddles of nomads ... Here comes a forest in wolf’s clothing, The wise hen bows to the umbrella. When the bloodshot evening meets the bloodshot night, They tell each other bloodshot tales. That bare branch over them speaks louder than words. The moon is worn threadbare. I repeat: lean days don’t come singly, It takes all kinds to make the sun rise. The night is each man’s castle. Don’t let the castle out of the bag. Wind in the valley, wind in the high hills, Practice will make this body fit this bed. * May all roads lead Out of a sow’s ear To what’s worth Two in the bush.

With only his dim lantern To tell him where he is And every time a mountain Of fresh corpses to load up Take them to the other side Where there are plenty more I’d say by now he must be confused As to which side is which I’d say it doesn’t matter No one complains he’s got Their pockets to go through In one a crust of bread in another a sausage Once in a long while a mirror Or a book which he throws Overboard into the dark river Swift and cold and deep