Dear Air
I saw you in the laundromat—my love, my voice, my
empty
dove.
I saw you in the closet in
the emptiness of shoes. I saw you in the window and
saw myself
in you. My
honeycomb, my fate, brief
virgin I once was. All
summer, white grapes
spun themselves from sun
and water on their vines—in-
candescent thumbs, clear-
blooded and alive. Love
made love to me the way
a spider shrouds a fly
in silk and lies until
he's amorous
and quiet
as a meal. And now I know that love like that is nothing, but
bottomless as
the space contained
by the gold hoop of a wedding ring lost
one day in linens. Five
thousand brides could dance
at one time
on that bright dime. Christ's
white tigers flying
through hoops of fire. You
did not see me, but I saw you. Thief: Womb:
Vowel
wrapped in light like
an old woman's
faded hair.
As in heaven, I saw you there, and all I could do was
stare
dumbly as you tumbled
your stars & flowers with my towels.
Hostess
One of the
guests arrives with irises, all
funnel & hood, papery tongues whispering
little
rumors in their mouths, and leaves
his white shoes
in the doorway
where the others stumble
on the emptiness when they come. He
smiles.
He says, "I'm
here to ruin your party, Laura," and he
does. The stems
of the irises
are too
long and stiff for a vase, and when
I cannot find
the scissors, I slice
them off with a knife
while the party
waits. Of course, the jokes
are
pornographic, and the flowers
tongued and
stunted
and seductive, while
in the distance weeds & lightning
make wired
anxiety of the night. But I'm
a hostess, a
woman who must give
the blessing of forced content, carry
a cage of nervous birds
like
conversation through my living room, turning
up the music,
dimming
the lights, offering more, or less, or
something else
as it seems
fit, using
only the intuition
of a lover's tongue, a confessional poet, or
a blind woman fluffing up her hair. It is
an effort,
making pleasure, passing
it around on a silver platter, and I'm
distracted all night
by his pale eye
like a symbol
of a symbol of something
out of logic's reach forever, until
the soggy
cocktail napkin
of my party ends
with this guest carrying
an iris around the kitchen in his teeth, daring
me
to take it out
with mine. Perhaps
a hostess should not
laugh
too hard, or dance
at her own affair. Frolic
is for the
guests, who've now
found their coats and shrugged them on. I
hear
someone call
"Good-night"
sullenly to the night, disappointment
like a gray fur lining
in her voice. Someone
mentions to
this guest
that his shoes have filled with rain, suggests
suggestively he wear
a pair of my
husband's shoes home when he goes. Of
course, of course, one
of the
godmothers has always
come to the christening for revenge. She
leans over the squirming bassinet and smiles
and sprinkles the baby with just
a bit of badness. In his
white smock, he
is prettier than we imagined
he could be, but also
sneaky, easily
bored, annoyed
with the happy
lives of his dull friends. When
he grows up
he'll go to parties just
to drink too much, to touch
the women in ways that offer
favors he can't
grant. The women
will roll their
eyes behind
one another's necks. The men
will bicker
about the wine. And
after the party, and the storm, in the after-
quiet, the
hostess will find
herself standing
a long time on the patio
alone, as I
stand tonight,
after
the party, in the still, small song of
embarrassment
and regret, aeolian
in my white
dress, the wind
feeling up
those places again while I
smoke a cigarette, which fills
my whole body
with the calm that comes
just after the barn
has burned to the ground, and the farmers'
wives in nightgowns
stand
around in
moonlit air, their
breasts nearly exposed, their
swan-necks warm. Perhaps
it was the
wine. When I
passed him in the hallway by the bathroom, I
thought I heard
him say, "Laura, I want
to ruin your
life," and, trying to be polite, I said, "That's
fine." I
said, "Make yourself at home".
