Chapter 5

Home

Our life was an accident, the flames were conjured by an indifferent couple.

So much time has passed, their union dissipated with the dumb carcass of our home.

This house has been all of our housesÐ our parents colluded with emptiness to conceal this fact.

We live from cairn to cairn, burning refugee hearts, each mistake receding in the rear-view mirror,

each incipient disaster breaking the night like headlights falling on a new city.

Fountain Street

there is a large hand unfolding above me, discreetly

it conceals a black man surrounded by a thin tincture of green like the moon eclipsing the sun

I am to give obeisance to him and his firm brothers lurking in the gardenÐÐ they strip me of my childhood casually with the relative calm of a standard play, the rising action, apex, and dŽnouementÐÐ

in the formation of sleepwalkers they withdraw silently into the past

commentary:

no one can explain why they came to shape the hidden aquifers of your life, but it is here, on Fountain Street, where you first stepped out of the unseen

cathexis

upstairs, my uncle relived his boyhood, looking from the garret window to the tree he had been tied to and into the corners of the yard where his impulses formed

he drove us to the pond by the frozen reservoirÐÐ my brother became pallid as animals do when divining pain, and we clambered out of the cab toward him

we undressed in a snowbank waiting for him to break the ice-- he circled around, motioning to me

I conjoined with his hammer poised over the immutable sheen, though I was only a boy and could barely anticipate the future blows of initiation and affection

commentary:

affection between men has always been circumscribed by pain

here, in the balance between love and brutality lies the origin of sport, the first act of civilization

femme inspiratrice

she waited under the stairs in the basement where I learned to feel and see without the advantages of light

she held me tightly to the ground and I complied with the conspicuous duties she created for me

I drifted to her daily, down the damp steps and found a love in her remorse that I could not find in myself

there she lay in the old air, suspended in the dark webs under the stairs whispering to me when I slept, and pleasing me

the inevitable

a man runs in the rain toward this small house

the window clouds up from his breath even though he is a mile away

his silhouette begins to blot out the moon, beads of water race down the glass

he will exact something from me, I can tell as he slips down the hill, muscles tensed

desire

it begins in childhood with an awkward moment behind the house then shatters outward, exploding into adulthood

here one collects fragments and reconstructs the face of the large boy who touched you but the eyes are always missingÐÐ only the lips remain, directing you downward

infidelity

a large dog fills up the backyard, the children are afraid to leave the house

each night, the dog inhales and exhales, its muscles contract against the walls

the dog's warm breath fills the attic as its teeth push slowly through the ceiling

the room dims, the lining of its black lips slides gradually over the windows

1974

I.

in the attic, a plank extended between the crossbeams over the living room ceiling to the room built by your father

women followed him there then departed hours later down the ladder recessed into the wall

one night his leg burst through the ceiling then snaked back through the hole

II.

your mother is busy in the next room with her new lover

you watch the changing colors of your father's injury as he sleeps on the couch

the spell

my mother used to compel me with her distance it was a diffident spell that made me imagine we were connected

but the vagaries of haunted girls look unhealthy in women and harden into caricature in old age

Cherryvale

I place my ear against the glass

the cicadas are chirring, there is a light breeze

a dust cloud forms on the horizon lit up by headlights

the engine rumbles closer

gravel knocks against the underbelly, wheels turn toward my room

a door creaks, a stranger materializes into mother with each footstep

my body folds into her long blue coat

ice breaking

I cross the wires where the hairs rest on the red barbs. Her scent lingers in the air. My hatchet mirrors the round moon momentarily as I swing it above me to split the thick sheet of ice.

Behind a tree, she watches the water rise and collect in a small pocket. Her hips shift, then she descends down the white embankment toward me.

Leadville

there is a corner where I choose to sleep where the low ceiling slants and meets above the supports

the walls are porous, I hear your pulse beat and feel the moisture gather about your hands

I never see you descend into the ground, I can only imagine the stillness of the tunnels, the lack of sound

commentary:

don't stay too long in Leadville, move on to the campfire where we huddled together like some ancient tribe learning the power of stories to stave away the night

tell the story again but this time remember that it is only another town where the blood drying on the rocks is your own

grandfather

the crossbeam creaks when grandmother cries, the floorboards muffle the drunken rage of her husband

she rocks steadily above him in the master bedroom with two generations of boys in her lap

they are all men now and each has taken his turn hauling the sad figure up the stairs

commentary:

I have also seen this inner structure of ancestral bonds, each fiber having the color of pain passing between father and son and on through to grandsons

I understand that it is whole that it is pure that I lose this view when I am in it, pulling against the weight of this old man's body that I am carrying

oracle

I.

weve run together for days, the poles chafing our shoulders-- we've had no choice but to champion our mother over the dirt path toward the stone house

the road is narrowing as the weeds rush by snapping in the spokes-- run faster, the wheels are turning the secret from her and the sun is scorching our backs

II.

contrary to legend, the brothers never died from exhaustion nor from Apollo's quixotic mercy but they did sleep well for two nights as their mother rambled on in the dark

they left Delphi crestfallen and slumped into the harness on the third morning, glanced at the mumbling woman and headed back to the farm

commentary:

looking northwest from the farm you can see where in another age the edge of a glacier left a row of rocks arrayed in a frozen line still marching south.

looking to the east you can still find the place where a train of oxen-drawn Conestogas stopped long enough for my great-grandmother to be born.