Hannah Gamble

It’s too cold to smoke outside, but if you come over, I’ll keep my hands to myself, or won’t I. I would like to tell you about the wall eaten up by the climbing plant—it was so beautiful. Various things have been happening to me, all of them sexual. The man on the bus took off his pants so I could see him better. Another man said, “Ignore him darlin’. Just sit on my lap.” But I’m not one of those who’s hungriest in the morning, unlike the man at the bakery who eats egg after egg after egg. Listen. Come over: the cold has already eaten the summer. I need another pair of ears: from the kitchen I can’t tell if I’m hearing wind chimes or some gray woman with failing arms dropping a pan full of onions and potatoes. This morning I need four hands— two to wash the greens, one to lift a teakettle, one to pour the milk. This morning, one little mouth will not do. We could play a game where we crouch on the tiles, two yellow dogs drinking coffee from bowls. We could play a game where we let the breakfast burn. Outside there’s a world where every love scene begins with a man in a doorway; he walks over to the woman and says “Open your mouth.”

Most people would rather not, but I indulge, every few weeks, the thought of it. Sometimes the oily smell of an evening flower appears and hangs in the air, a slightly browner spot. I think most people had it wrong when they said forget about it and find a fresh patch of  grass to lie down in. There are prayers, though, about that kind of peace. I have to admit, sometimes I want nothing more than to be lying on the bottom of an unimpressive river. I can watch all the leaves and sticks skim over my head, and no one will bother me because they’re swimming in the more impressive rivers. The water’s not too cold. It doesn’t feel like being dead. It also doesn’t feel like being old or fetal. I came to the humble water to lie down. I did what I set out to do. Now I don’t have to tell you anything more about it.

— After Catullus My house disgusted me, so I slept in a tent. My tent disgusted me, so I slept in the grass. The grass disgusted me, so I slept in my body, which I strung like a hammock from two ropes. My body disgusted me, so I carved myself out of it. My use of knives disgusted me because it was an act of violence. My weakness disgusted me because “Hannah” means “hammer.” The meaning of my name disgusted me because I’d rather be known as beautiful. My vanity disgusted me because I am a scholar. My scholarship disgusted me because knowledge is empty. My emptiness disgusted me because I wanted to be whole. My wholeness would have disgusted me because to be whole is to be smug. Still, I tried to understand wholeness as the inclusiveness of all activities: I walked out into the yard, trying to vomit and drink milk simultaneously. I tried to sleep while smoking a cigar. I have enough regrets to crack all the plumbing. I’m whole only in that I’ve built my person from every thought I’ve ever loved.

It had a secret name which in later years came to mean I will continue to stand here. It had a food mouth and a shrieking mouth. Popular wisdom indicated that Its hands could heat stones and that a man could cook meat on those stones. That being said, It had a poverty hand and a riches hand. They were the same hand. A little ways above the hands the mouths spoke together but for two different reasons, like the music was behaving but the orchestra was broken. * Even in less benevolent moments, It was known to use Its own body as a tent and as the gifts inside of the tent. Early people said It had a mother hand and a father hand, and that together they made a clapping sound. Its hands delivered the children from madness. The hands saw the riverbank sliding into the river to make a more shallow river. They scooped the mud up. The hands were giving thanks. * The hands smelled like exodus. The hands were the law. One hand grew older, and the other hand younger. They said, fairly often, We’d like to try that again. Both were restless and wanted rest. One hand said,I will go where you go, while the other hand continued on alone.

I wanted to make myself like the ravine so that all good things would flow into me. Because the ravine is lowly, it receives an abundance. This sounds wonderful to everyone who suffers from lacking, but consider, too, that a ravine keeps nothing out: in flows a peach with only one bite taken out of it, but in flows, too, the body of a stiff mouse half cooked by the heat of the stove it was toughening under. I have an easygoing way about me. I’ve been an inviting host — meaning to, not meaning to. Oops — he’s approaching with his tongue already out and moving. Analyze the risks of becoming a ravine. Compare those with the risks of becoming a well with a well-bolted lid. Which I’d prefer depends largely on which kinds of animals were inside me when the lid went on and how likely they’d be to enjoy the water, vs. drown, freeze, or starve. The lesson: close yourself off at exactly the right time. On the day that you wake up under some yellow curtains with a smile on your face, lock the door. Live out your days untroubled like that.

Growing a bear — a midnight occupation, the need for which you perhaps first realized when you saw the wrong kind of shadow under your chin — a convex when you expected concave, so now it’s clear you’re getting older. Your wife was in the shower and you wanted to step inside and soap her up like you did in college when she said “I’ll shower with you, but I’m leaving my underwear on,” and you enjoyed her in every way you could enjoy a person with soap. You didn’t join your wife in the shower. She’s gotten funny about letting you see her shave her legs or wash herself anywhere. You think she read it somewhere — that letting your husband see you pluck anything, trim anything, apply medicine to anything, will make him feel like he’s furniture. It’s exactly on cold nights like these that the basement is not as forbidding as it should be, despite the fact that you have to put gloves on in what is part of  your own home. Downstairs, a large bathtub, kept, for some reason, after remodeling. It is there that your bear will be grown, by you, though you have no idea how. Probably wishing is most of it; fertilizer, chunks of raw stew meat, handfuls of  blackberries, two metal rakes, and a thick rug make up the rest. Then water. You get an e-mail from a friend late at night saying he can’t sleep. You write back “I hope you feel sleepy soon” and think how childish the word “sleepy” is. And you’re a man, older than most of  the people you see on television. You haven’t even considered how your wife will feel when you have finished growing your bear. You could write a letter to her tonight, explaining how your life was just so lacking in bear: “Janet, it’s nothing you’ve done — clearly you have no possible way of supplying me with a bear or any of the activities I might be able to enjoy after acquiring the bear.” It might just be best to keep the two worlds separate. Janet clearly prefers things to be comfortable and unchallenging. Janet soaps herself up. Janet puts herself to bed, and you just happen to be next to her. You go on your weekly bike ride with Mark and tell him that you’ve been growing a bear. An eighteen-wheeler flies by and he doesn’t seem to hear you — plus he’s focused on the hill. You think about how not all friends know what each other sounds like when struggling and breathing heavy. Past the age of college athletics, most friends don’t even know what each others’ bodies look like, flushed, tired, showering, cold.