Dale Going

my husband thinks we have too many chairs in our house. I know we need more, my friend has enough chairs, many many more than we have. I told my husband: chairs, picture frames — they are the same. when my friend and her husband have talked about looking for a different place to live, one with space for the families of their six children, he says, "but I want this view." on the interior walls, facing away from the sea, are paintings of this view — "well, it's not exactly our view, but close" — taken somewhere on this small stretch of land near the lighthouse, the painting of their house really of the one next door, a corner of their house visible in the background (receding in the perspective). in the Whistleresque painting, the house next door is a train rushing forward through the night fog. our daughter believing, acting as though (she believes) she can control the universe externals, personal at dinner, after three days joking of this (its urgency, extravagant tampering, how she commands and navigates, exhorts us: parents, boyfriend), I say, too bluntly, "so — have you thought of modifying your behavior?" crude, hurt her, she cries, is embarrassed, she says, thinking the others in the restaurant have heard, "I know you don't mean to, but you're hard of hearing, you talk too loud." reading garden books the last week, immersed in gardens, in words, in visions of gardens deer ate all the roses, the night Lily left the gate open her husband wants this view, there is a place down the road, much larger, it has the same view (nearly). he wants to move there, but the houses are entirely different, the new one very formal, "a real house," my friend says. she is reluctant to leave her perfect — the perfect she created — structure. the chair, the frame, matter as much as the view they arrange. ashamed, aware I've cut too close "your behavior" jokes are dismissable/admissible this was criticism. I want to apologize but do not explanation       self-righteous (remember an earlier fight, when she lived with us, her shouting, "why do you always have to be right?" me shouting, "because I AM!") or sinking, return the authenticity (not authority) of others’ visions, seeing New York thirdhand at the moment of being there firsthand with my friend. my my interpretation of her memories — she’d lived there — inextricable from my own immediately perceived visions. descending into the subway on an August day, the steps down to an aqua pool filled with Perrier. everyone breathing in the airpockets the bubbles made, cool and floating under water. they rose from the subway refreshed. her dream became my strongest image of the city later, we go to the movies, split up at the multiplex, the men to a macho flick (we see the previews of their film/ glad we missed it). she and I sit in the last row — she doesn't want anyone behind her — spatial boundary preemptive, compelling throughout the movie she tells latecomers the two seats beside her are taken. I talk to her about imagining her aura I want to give her the house she wants. I love her so. I want her to know. like my mom reading about newborn babies in the hospital, cribs ribboned in blue and pink, "as if that's not enough," she says, "the cribs are labeled: 'I'm a boy!' 'it's a girl!' " looking out from oneself: I and thou. (bowing acknowledgment in that "thou": blessing.) looking out for oneself: I and it. imagining her aura — huge and wide — so if someone sits near — it won't matter — she'll still have personal space — "I know, I know" — driving her Delta 88 — and she squeezes my hand — her father out fishing on a boat in the afterlife (according to the psychic) — something about wine — your mother — tell her — "my mother doesn't drink" — tell your mother to stop whining. it is not one view. from the same chair it’s constantly changing, coloring, waving. from different chairs, more so. gradations. water, clearest of notices that we are (the world is) in constant motion. putting forth first: we are? the world is? world/we. moving out from where we are/moving in from out there. the ferry crossing back and forth to the mainline, to “America.” this place called simply, by islanders, “the island.” THE island. there is no other frame or chair, no need for description, the world is circumscribed. For Becca, Betty, Marie

I don't want my legs to show I don't    want my legs    to show that I'm willing instead I ripped my skirt off the first story     (in which I am featured) my mother having forgotten the wooden clothespins which were my usual toys     not having them to gum & grip     instead I ripped my skirt off say    I'm willing more than    so I'm too    willing so say so more than say so much    than I'm willing to    say I don't want my legs to show    but my breasts are available      not motion but gravity     the steadfast pounding not motion    not pavement the pounding the skirt is the uniform    grey & sullen     in school    refusing to hold a pleat     wet wool on iron steaming     flung after lying in snow thighs red & icy sitting for yearbook pictures smart girls    honor    society our white panties showing every one if I show you my legs won’t you see that I’m leaving all life is a leaning slow dancing      eyes closed arms raised around his neck each girl     a view for some other girl’s partner they are not the feature    the breasts hide the heart or disclose it    the legs hide the opening the skirt hides the legs disguise enclosure in clothes my mother couldn't understand why I wouldn't wear a slip when standing in the light the outline of my legs shone the skirt matters    although it is see- through fear is a by-product do not be dissuaded this made more sense than that division into love & fear I began to see fear as a curtain    a scrim substantive as light evasive & theatrical but light     as a curtain it need not be skirted a skirt may be ripped    shredded or moved easily aside it need not be violated it can be adjusted

Charles Olson wrote, "You can work on the life, or you can work on the work; you can't do both." How can we separate the two? Why would we want to? Denise Newman Elsewhere as internal. A journal a journey. Not geographical, conquering or colonizing. One is always outside. Even this is a distance. The enclosure is temporary, temporal, a noticing. A space interior, represented by room or book.Diurnal — a journal. Small volume containing the services for the little, or day, hours. An exquisite butterfly, as distinguished from a moth. Day after day extinguished and preserved. Distance measured in days, ending in death, or when the book is full. Her notebooks. I want to tell you about this. (You?) To listen secretly to what is said. "The men's tongues are jewels.” The women's ears are jewels. Her husband is described in sovereign terms. Her primary role is hostess. Going out into the world is a matter what is the matter of ominous glimpses No indicators, distinctions of time, in this over and over. The antistrophe is the catastrophe. Route in day. In a given day, whatever is done. From one place to another, whether distant or near. A passage through life, a passage written, epic remains in a room, the female tribe questing. The self-reflections, abruptions, eruptions, the thinking going only so far as it will, ending in midair — or much further than it needs to Travel, because it reveals? Ravels?Ravel itself ambiguous, to ravel and unravel the same and sharing opposite meanings — "to let fall into a tangled mass; to separate or undo the texture of." Tangled and separate. "Hence to entangle, make intricate, involve; Hence to disentangle, make plain." Traveling one sees connection and mystery. One sees? Sightings/sitings. As though there's a hope one could situate, identify, locate. Claim. The first to sight land. If you see it, it is yours. Her slides and the scribbled notes on her typed accompaniment — which accompanied which? (The notion of forefronting she attempts to subvert.) Small chapters, various and repetitive (cumulative, cyclical, consequential, or in-). Typography gives way. The "central" fiction is perhaps hers, yet is continually disrupted. (This word whose connotations I don’t entirely or exclusively intend or negate.) The intimate distance of telephoto lens — The attempt at both. Objectivity without imposing pattern. She "eavesdropping" (a hearing and house word) on her neighbors. Slides of a wounded man, windowed woman. They were without narrative, yet we imposed narrative. We couldn't stay distanced or objective watching — was this a failure — wanting to see what would happen. The new earrings (which otherwise seem an anomaly, not connecting as the other slides connect private with public) — But what more intimate than the jeweled ear, what more public — The point of connection— We hear. The ornamented ear. Up close, a whisper. A construct more complex and inclusive. "Evidence," noticings, of equal value. There is a large painting behind her projector, someone else's artwork — it mirrors the images in her slides — a scarred man, the musical staves of telephone lines traversing empty skies, a house with a vacant window (the woman has left to answer the phone, hoping it is the man, that he is safe). When this painting is pointed out (I point it out) she says, "That's the way life is." The repetitions — not even realizing they’re the same revelations. Accretions and accumulations, if one learns at all it is “eventually.” Journal entries as openings. Misspelling: “entires.” Begin to read The New York Times again — thus the world enters. I did start reading the paper. Manic, middle of the night, on chemo. Moon face, legs that would no longer hold me, fingers that could not cut or turn or grasp. I read. Obsessed with news of a world I was not in. My doctor said, "Give it an hour a day. Limit it." But the prednesone hallucination in my brain, every time I closed my eyes, looked like an explosion, an atom bomb, repeating, ceaselessly. My atoms. I read about Chernobyl. I ate the words. The poisoned milk, the vegetables. My skin was scarred, burned from the inside, red on the surface from treatment that charred my cells. Doctors from my hospital flew there, trying to save lives. Half my head was bald, overnight. Toxic, waste. Waist-length hair covered the bald spot for awhile, till it too fell out in handfuls. My face a moon. My hair no halo. My face a plate. White and pasty, red from exertion which was nothing at all, red from staying awake. Red from burning. Red from sweats, leaning forward and watching it rain on the newspapers . . . The short and the long of it. Containing and erasing all history in this present moment. Every sentence could be threaded together, shuffled direct connections. Integration without the abyss? The world's madness and disintegration do not cause madness and disintegration The blurring disregard of boundaries The water which falls in drops from the eaves of a house. To stand under the eaves, as to listen and learn what is said within doors: "It is beautiful and we are just beginning to recover from it."

fluid melodic getting more and more drastic the moment she gives in to him she regrets it a throat   a chest trying to press themselves a current of air air through the mask all the flourishes in the world the fingers, the foot trilling, the breath keen responding to recitative closing and opening out from the head with the hands carry it through the aria carry it through the chorus when finally does, waltzes a solo but not alone “let's waltz a rumba" never gives in to the waltz never embellished motifs, mimetic, sign language as clear gesture displacing singers he likes this sound muted and pronounced effort of error she likes this sound weight, irrepressible effort of eros they talk about their differences w/out trying to change or be changed regretting herself where do we meet each other w/out trying to hang or be caged