Sandra M. Gilbert

in memory of R.I.S. 1. Would I know her anywhere, this child who never knew you except in photographs? She has your high clear polished forehead, but “No, my sister has his dimple, the cleft in his chin ...” Tight curly hair (like yours) drawn back, and your face, thinned, refined, to a girl’s—you in a girl’s body, you (thick, muscular, tempestuous) newly slight, polite:you in a neat print skirt, loose black blouse! Now a seventeen-year-old classicist— “Latin’s my favorite”—you translate Catullus, write tidy sonnets, envy the sister who remembers the dead father, but (as you always did) adore your mother and walk with your head thrown slightly back as if the weight of thought were hard to bear. I rock in my teacherly chair. She’s shy, constrained. “I don’t want to read my father’s poems, they’re all in tatters in the closet, they scare me.” I tell her I’m kind of a long-lost aunt, tell her about the photo of you as (you said) “the young Shelley”— about your huntsman’s bow, opera, baseball, endless games of chess in the dorm parlor with you boasting your prowess. And she’s embarrassed, you’re embarrassed, living in her blood, to think you ever acted like that! 2. When you were a man, a thirty-seven-year old, long after our last fight, last kiss, you OD’d on morphine and disappeared into the blanks that always framed your mind. But she’s sent two poems and a thank-you note, and her handwriting—yours—hasn’t changed. “It meant a lot to me to talk about my dad,” you scribbled with your new small fingers. I want to believe this, want to believe you’re really starting out again! Do me a favor: forget Catullus, Horace, love and hate and think, instead, of the epic cell, the place where the chromosomes are made and made for a moment perfect. Translate those lines from Virgil some of us once liked to chant, the ones about beginning, about those who first left Troy to seek the Italian shore.

hunched over the greasy burner on the stove was noir, as in film noir, as in cauchemar, as in le nuit not blanche but noir, the dream you can’t wake up from, meaning she was a mouse fatale, licking the old oil glued to the old cooktop, feasting in her tiny hunched-up sewer life on fats & proteins for her bébés all atremble in their rotting poubel nest, so when I screamed my piercing Anglo-Imperial scream of horror & betrayal— not my stove, not my traces of pot au feu— she leaped, balletic, over the sink, the fridge, the lave-vaiselle, & back to the cave& the trash she scuttled, grim as a witch in La Fontaine who has to learn the lesson we all must learn: Reality is always sterner than pleasures of the nighttime burner.

decreed my mother-in-law as my husband passed the platter of inward-turning soft-skulled Martian baby heads around the table, and they were O so shyly slyly jostling each other with their boiled- green sardonic gossip (what was the news they told?) when he sharply answered, “Mother, have you ever eaten an artichoke?” “No,” she said, majestic, “but I just know I don’t care for them, don’t care for them at all”— for truly, if they weren’t Martian they were at the least Italian from that land of “smelly cheese” she wouldn’t eat, that land of oily curves and stalks, unnerving pots of churning who knows what, and she, nice, Jewish, from the Bronx, had fattened on her Russian- Jewish mother’s kugel, kosher chicken, good rye bread .... Bearded, rosy, magisterial at forty-five, he laughed, kept plucking, kept on licking those narcissistic leaves, each with its razor point defending the plump, the tender secret at the center, each a greave or plate of edible armor, so she smiled too, in the flash of dispute, knowing he’d give her ice cream later, all she wanted, as the rich meal drew to an end with sweets dished out in the lamplit circle, to parents, children, grandma— the chocolate mint she craved, and rocky road he bought especially for her, whose knees were just beginning to crumble from arthritis, whose heart would pump more creakily each year, whose baby fat would sag and sorrow as her voice weakened, breathing failed until she too was gathered into the same blank center where her son at sixty bearded still, still laughing, magisterial (though pallid now) had just a year before inexplicably settled.

—for J.R. More than a third of a century later, meeting for the first time in almost all those years, we face each other’s still somewhat familiar faces across a table in a California restaurant, and wonder why we did it, why we suddenly said that night in July in Greenwich Village “Let’s go to Connecticut,” and got on a train and ended up at midnight in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, holding hands on an empty road that wound past serious grown-up sleeping houses .... Well, I was fifteen, you were nearly twenty-one, we were experimentally “in love,” and I guess it must have seemed like “something to do”—better than Remo anyway, or the coffee houses, or the Eighth Street Bookstore, even, in that scratchy heat, better than Jones Beach: the long low sober train boring into a wall of black, the alien townships spurting past on either side (nothing very built up then), each with its deserted, brilliant platform malting for the next day’s passengers, the real people who really needed to ride that train. How cindery the windows were, and spooky with moths outside the glamorous club car where we sat with sodas on itchy plush reclining seats! And how the crickets simmered where we got out, dizzy on 7UP! Remember the hedges—lilac, honeysuckle— along the way, as we walked toward we didn’t know where? We kissed a little under one, tasting salt and 7UP on each other, not sure what next or where, then peered at the shadows on lawn after lawn, the dim bulk of chimneys, shapes of shutters, here a trike, there a plastic pool, and couples snoring, mysterious, behind those tall white walls, until we got embarrassed, still not sure what next, retraced our steps, boarded another train, and were hurried back to where we came from, feeling like voyeurs, like trespassers.

On the news tonight, a presidential colonoscopy — a tale of   how for three whole hours the chief  exec of   trouble handed trouble to his vice (although no double trouble came), but then no more details revealed: no bacterial armies multiplying in a flare of  war among kingly polyps & no kinky creases. Welcome to the presidential gut, bubble gum pink, not a spot of  shit (after a quick administrative cleanout) where global decisions stir & sit in state, and the first physician’s mighty pointer traces only microdrops of   blood in secret places.

—in memory of Angela Marie Incoronata Caruso Mortola, May 21, 1903–January 14, 2001 1 In-and-out sun   like the light of her mind   that knows and doesn’t   feels and forgets   pelts of rain hid and seek   of thought   first gray then rose but still a steady backlight   (sometimes hidden): “Remember Woody Allen’s line?   I’m not like that   I don’t care when it happens   where I just don’t want to die   not scared   not that I just don’t want to   and I told the doctor!” and the doctor   laughing “Cute old lady   said she doesn’t care about the why and wherefore she just doesn’t want to die . . .” and therefore? then she forgets   smiles   turns her head to nod grande dame at shadows on the walls that gather where the light collects   and falls 2 They gather   where the light collects and falls we can’t see them   but she seems to think at least a few are smiling   so she feels she has to say hello   politely thank these thoughtful ghosts who visit   sister   brothers Sunday best in black   old Brooklyn friends who hardly see   the gulf of sixty years mama and papa   severe Sicilian bookends “Come in, come in” her eyes light up   she waves and beckons all to chairs around her bed so she can boast to brothers   and their wives of all the special things   her daughter did and how her grandkids won   so many prizes and as she vaunts   and glows   her smile blazes 3 But though she glows   but though her smile blazes the sister flickers   fades   the brothers falter her eyesight’s bad   it’s hard to see their faces as if she peered through gauze   or a thick filter and then the others come   the ones she calls “co-tenants” of her rooms   the lovers screwing coarse as goats   in corners   nasty girls smart-aleck guys   who do know what they’re doing and what they do   is occupy her place back home they swarmed   all over her apartment set up a stove   behind her lovely bookcase nursed babies on her sofa   bold indifferent and even here   still shameless in their clingings they mean to steal   they’ll steal   her best belongings 4 What should she do   to safeguard   her belongings? she begs for help   urges us to lock to triple lock   the doors   to hide her things her pearls right here her fruitwood in New York her mother’s hand-carved walnut chairs   the leather- surfaced desk   at which my father sat so long ago   wearing the cashmere sweater grandma bought him   and the Sulka shirt Listen!   Are we listening!   Have we heard? How well he dressed!   How beautiful their place! four rooms in Queens   what lots couldn’t afford in an age of breadlines   shameful jobs   or worse “Tuono di Dio!”   thunder of God   she looses the curse she learned in childhood   for most uses 5 The curses learned   in childhood   have their uses Tuono di Dio! she swears when they strip her   bare to bathe her Tuono di Dio! when the nurses slide the soiled bed pads   to the floor or prop her   in the wheelchair   to be fed thunder of God   echoes along the halls when she tries to fight   the husky nurse’s aide come to sponge her bruises   stains and spills embarrassed   we shiver   in the corridor while she flails   and shrieks for the police “Tuono di Dio! Call the police!”   God’s thunder will scorch us if we leave her   in this place away from her apartment   calm   and peace away from her belongings   purse and keys 6 Away from her belongings   purse   and keys (and crumpled Kleenex   reading glasses coins and comb she always   carries   in that purse) she isn’t real!   she might be only bones! yet the belongings   longings   must go on the bookcase and the rugs   and tables must survive   outlast her   so she tells her grandson how to plan an auction   in the east there are the costs   of those belongings   that the value of mahogany   and this the price of sterling silver (which she fought to buy—a fifth-grade teacher   in the thirties—) and the bracelets   furs   her in-laws gave too bad they can’t   go with her to the grave! 7 What happens to belongings   after the grave? They’ll be   up here and she   she’ll be   down there what of the   stuff she worked   so hard   to have? polished mahogany   and mink   and silver and even the fifteen-year-old   television still good   still just right for the nightly news and the brand-new   vacuum cleaner   even still a— a something someone ought   to choose her face is crumpling   like a handkerchief don’t give it all   away   don’t give it up if you don’t want it   at least sell it off! don’t let the others have it either   stop the thieves before   they drag it all    away don’t let my belongings go astray. . . . 8 Don’t let my belongings   go astray call the super   tell the doorman   keep the windows locked   and barred   the crooks away the one who break   and enter   when you sleep the ones   who follow   sullen   knife and rape how many years   she’s warned us   can’t we hear they’ll pick the locks   they’ll climb the fire   escape just look   the crooks are here   are everywhere a sudden nod   a glance at   the next bed where a wizened   person   gasps and snores that one now   she saw her   yes she did peering in closets   rummaging in drawers even in hospitals   they have   no pity they rob you   when they see   your things are   pretty 9 Yet O it’s nice   that all her things are   pretty her smile blazes   back in Jackson Heights (on one of the   better   blocks   in New York City) her beautiful   apartment   basks and waits a hush of rugs   a drawn Venetian   blind keeping the silence   keeping the bars   of shadow gathered like silent   guardians   around the hanging   shelf   the Wedgewood   the piano and there the family   photographs   are massed my father’s face   blade-thin   in sepia my baby self   in flounces   or undressed from times   when she was poor   but happier belongings blurry   as if   underwater bearing the prints   of mother   father   daughter 10 How far the age   of mother   father   daughter! my baby room with walls   now pink   now blue (but never yellow   though I begged   I fought her) and the tiny snowman   globe   where snowflakes   flew and the little silver   Virgin Mary   shrine whose key I   turned   to play Our Lady’s song “Ave Maria”   tinkling   out of tune and the gray   hooked rug   where silent bluebirds sang and a rabbit ran   away   among the trees but never   vanished   never could   escape whatever chased him   from the knitted haze a scary   thing because it had no shape though now the whole   room’s painted hazy   gray and the rabbit   trees   and birds   raveled away 11 When did her mind   begin to ravel   away? —that time she fell   outside   the beauty parlor (getting pretty for   her grandson’s    birthday)? she didn ’t   answer   when we tried   to call her and soon   with mop and broom   she fought the others called 911   the super   the police there on the sofa   sat   the nursing mothers the lovers   crawled and thrashed   under the bookcase we flew   to Queens   we packed up all   her things the fox-head furs   her mother ’s lion-necklace “But what about all my other   best   belongings?” she worried   then gave up   resigned   to silence a roar of takeoff   buckled in   she hissed “Here’s to my new   adventure   in the west!” 12 At sundown   tantrums   shake the sunset west the nurses turn her toward the flashing   window “See the flowers? See the pretty bird’s nest?” bushes tug in tubs   on the patio where a night   wind   rises   over Astroturf batters the waiting   tables   chairs   and wheelchairs as if they stood   in a swirl   of Pacific surf whose icy water   glitters   darkens   clears “Here’s dinner, hon!” the nurse’s aide   with bib holds out a tray of lukewarm   grown-up   mush last week a fall   tore muscles   cracked a rib how did   she fall   did someone   really push? she tries to remember   strains to see   remembers (sometimes) the names   of sundown   visitors 13 Sometimes the names   of sundown visitors hook into thought   sometimes the sounds   unravel blur   sister   brothers   TV commentators (Frank and Vito turn into Ted Koppel) I visit   afternoons   bring cupcakes   chocolate the only stuff she   ever wants   to eat can barely swallow though   one night past midnight she coughs   a little   chokes on   her own spit the night nurse   didn’t hear   the radio was turned on loud   she’s kind of scared   and sorry and puts a rose   on the poor   old lady’s   pillow and a mortician   calls   and tells us   not to worry above the sunlit bay   the slicing planes rise fast   and one speeds east   with her “remains” 14 Back among   her belongings   her remains glide north northwest   in a shiny   SUV designed to weather snowstorms   freezing rains far from the simmering   fields   of Sicily the East Coast cemetery’s stony   pressed into a cleft   of hills   black ice   I skid on leaning to greet the freckled   hearty   priest looking   not looking at the box   she’s laid in at the edge of the polished   boards   that hold her husband the priest   says the words   she scorned   she didn’t believe (she has to be blessed   to belong   to holy ground) and O she would   scold us   if she were still alive! no Tuono di dio no bolt   so fierce and true as the light of her mind   that felt   that thought   that knew