The Frame
The story of his life, he says, and hands
you a small packet of snapshots,
two or three of himself as a child
but mostly his wives and lovers,
one of his mother disconcertingly
like his first wife. When was this?
he asks, as if you’ve a key.
The women looking out
from the picture frames, ears weighted
with his gifts, seem buoyant.
A month ago you fell into bed
with a guy you’d put up in the study;
you blame the heat for your wandering
through the house that night,
and when he left you felt more relieved
than disappointed. Now
he’s just a friend, like this man
with the photographs. You rely
on the word “friend” as on a fence.
It’s women who slant towards you
from pictures, on the street, at home,
women’s voices to which your ears are keyed.
On the back seat of a Studebaker
you and the girl upstairs
acted out fantasies. An older woman
pulled you down to her lap, your breath
stirring the flowers pinned
on her blouse. You put your hand
in your roommate’s waist-long hair,
the golden horse she called it;
you talked of moving from Cross Street
to Mount Hope, of husbands feeding guns
to children, of a second abortion,
and gave each other a key to life
as if you knew the way around.
You demonstrate ballet, toes
vectoring out. Swing the leg,
you tell her, wheel from the pelvis.
And she tries. You feel her knees
for the turnout; your touch
is professional but her kneecaps
burn your fingers. Later, by the fire,
neatly tucked up, she theorizes.
How did your mother smell? you insist,
leaning forward in an awkward lurch
through space that separates you.
You leave fingerprints on her ankles,
earlobes, hair.
In the photograph you mail at Christmas
clear across the continent from Del Mar
you look straight at the camera, your lover
framed by your chair back, both faces subtly
reflected in the windowpane. Barriers
between you and women are transparent
these days, everywhere you look.
