The View They Arrange

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