Cassandra
The rust I saw always behind me
pushed my image away in the perfect metal
the cool suspension of my mirror---Still
I looked
Life is a paring away of anything that
is not pure light
How often this appeared in the form of an
angel
how
often it burned
I knew already the beloved would be wasted
on the field
the first time I took his hand Every
time I touched his body
I felt the hole in the ground where he would
go
The same as it is for me---
I
see my shadow on the earth, but also
sun going through me to where
my shadow disappears
When I was little it came to me suddenly
like an illness I
was walking through a room
on the cool tile but also in the ashes it
would become
Then for years---nothing
When I began to touch strangers, I could
tell
time by their bodies. For a while I was
popular
under the trees, telling fortunes, then
because
what I said was true
and happened
I was shunned
Just the way the archer and the target
are one
What would happen and I were one
I envy the way others forget in the wrapping
of limbs on limbs
the cry that pulls them from their bodies
the sun that rises every day to burn their
hands and shoulders
Even in his arms, I feel in me the way
the stars
have been scattered into the sky by force
the infinite coldness of the Gods---shining
I am my body against him
but
also my bones
the pattern of infinite fire
I will be broken into
Odysseus,
To you is left the start on the bone-laden
sea.
Burying your sailors, you tie memory to
their ankles,
leave them by the side of the whale road
for fish or birds.
At night the dead rise to meet you from
the waves;
By day the dead rise to meet you in the
air.
I forgot it was a long boat on a long
sea. Penelope
and I imagine you in the large room of water,
dancing.
To you is left the bench beside her cold
door.
Inside she weaves and unweaves breath from
the shroud
of her body while the suitors are at home
in their last wooden houses.
The sea's worn your friends to rocks--chalk
you could pocket
or skip over the skin of the water. I find
you walking
along an edge of the room, calling the
bodies back to you
in their fervor and their blood. Your figure
keeps being
written-the tendrils of your laugh, your
sly flanks and eyes.
You wait on the curb, hands around a battered
cup, singing
with change. You wait in your apartment
for the faces
on the 10 o'clock news. No-one you know.
To you is left between the land and land,
the wife and wife, time.
You watch the arrow arc into the air and
fall as a bottle
to the pavement. Everyone you know has gone
to war.
They crash into one another on the shore.
You pace the last
journey: sound of feet on tiles, planks,
the dirt floor.
In bed either your dog howls with its head
pressed
against your ear or you drive a spear straight
through
a metal plate. Either the snouts of the
pigs rooting at your genitals
or the sound of the dragging body in the
road. I know a man
caught in the belly of his plane with a
moaning head
in his lap. I know a man who lives in a
city, stuck
every afternoon back into the burning buildings,
alive
only when the sun ignites the skyscrapers.
But Odysseus,
to you is left the chair at table or at
hearth. My mistake:
You eat well and sleep beside her. To you,
I grant
the sentry on the walls and you within.
To you is left
the silence of coming back to the place,
welcomed,
the days of drowning the war in the wine-dark
cup.
Orpheus and Eurydice
I.
Could you picture her {radiance, now earth
body, clods of light falling from her}
at the breakfast table with peeled oranges
and scrambled eggs after pomegranates
or plain dirt? How could I take her again
to the family gatherings {drunken games
at Xmas?, picture heavy weddings in which
she'd be a glimmer?, overcooked dinners?}
where they'd ask over a glass of wine
about the fashions in Hades or what it was
like
to be dead so long-did she miss it? Had
she seen the heroes? {In her a silence
dehisces, the cat still yowls, I could
have told you things that} She was so
changed {god how ugly, a brilliant loneliness,
someone else's bride in an unmade}
I wasn't even sure it was her. Of course
the pain throbbed behind me of the great
Otherness {the rush of the field lifting
in the force of wings, a sudden opening
in dirt,
the words pooling} which the glance pushed
against {don't stare at the crippled in
the
grocery store, close your eyes when you
kiss, look away from dogs mating}. But how
could I bring her {rotting, luminous, brittle}
back with me? I took only what I knew {the
plucked string dying on the lyre, the coat
of my body to wear holes in, my infinite
desire}.
II. Her Thoughts
The people there knew things {eating a
mother's heart = to understand birds, emptying
the body = to live forever, how desire was
the only leash he had to hold us on}
They were more real than {the book I was
reading in the grass before, the love he
tried to show in his face for my beauty,
our silent dinner table}
humans in the earth {faces from dirt and
shadow, those huge bonfires, low fierce
voices that echoed}
When he came to fetch me back {stray dog
of a wife, child wandering through the aisles,
misplaced wallet}
I stayed silent {stones in my mouth, I
was praying for myself, how he looked at
me}
hoping Hades would live up to his stinginess
{all those trees with uneaten fruit, the
large stone, the birds his brother owned
and sent against the belly of fire}
I had always been {alive only in my mind,
a husk, unknown}
a bargain between men. Hades flickered
{eyebrow raised, he called the river around
him into his heart each night, how he stroked
that dog against the grain of its fur}
and agreed as long as {I was breaking,
I was burning with the thought of sun, I
was at the endless parties stretching out
over the years and the chat}
my husband had no desire {a blow-up doll,
the way he appraised my outfits, how the
man behind this door had touched me and
it burned into}
to look back {at our wedding I wore orange
blossoms, he was so handsome, when he kissed
me he watched himself in the mirror}
I called up in me {anger, cold rides through
the stars that etched night, his long discursions
on perfect tone}
the afterlife and looked at him {piercing
into, radiance, seeing the soul arise unbodied}
I saw him flinch then {calculate the profits,
how many songs could it yield, the local
press coverage}
decide: I knew he would {release into being,
something larger, I was born to die to myself}
turn and leave me.
III.
Still, the difficulty in living with her
{skin derives from the verb to skin, I am
both the thing inside and the thing out,
my Beloved}
ghost always in the house {leaning on the
mud wall, throwing shells rinds grounds
on the refuse pile, bent over my torso in
the bed}
She said the idea of Beloved {the miles
on the highway before dawn, how many motels
did I visit, waitress named Lulu with a
plastic badge}
infects everything {she had blond hair,
she was sinewy, her lips were slices of
pears}.
I thought she was {a bit dull, we were
drinking, our cafe with the tea lights}
cute, being dramatic {she flirted with
waiters, she wore tight dresses, when I
fucked her the heels clattered on the wall}
but now when I speak
it is a type of possession {my arm behind
me, her mouth on my neck or ear, I heard
voices as a child from the cold sky}
I am singing to you so she goes {useless
soap won't wash away her body or my thought,
three days of rain, the cat sits in the
window always waiting}
I am trying to force her out {lithe naked
on the couch, I loved her like a good husband
loves a good wife, her gilded jewelry on
the dresser}
I am hacking her into pieces {iambs, strophes,
in the garden the flowers bloom with a type
of fury}
with my words If you see her {spitting
olive stones onto the earth, swimming naked
in cold Lethe, leaning towards a hero in
that damn field}
tell her to come home {her glow could illuminate
the pages, she could cool me in summer,
I could close all the shutters}
and bed down {in the heat of, forgiving,
my heart again}
in her body {a woman's glamour is in a
man, I will sing you into the stars, you
are the most beautiful painting I have}
IV. Re: Your Letter {your love was a
type of death}
Which came yesterday {slightly stained,
I was drinking tea, later the singing}
and which I believe {the silence erupts
into, caught like a seed in a throat, the
flowers open too slowly here}
to be a lie --- I am {slowly turning bone,
my voice as clear as, men give me money
just for walking by}
happy here. It is too hot but {we sweat
more when we fuck, I open all the shutters,
he has a body run by muscles}
cicadas vortex around the heat {the maid
walked in on us in Mexico with the mirror
down, you made love to my reflection, you
corrected my sentences}
At night there are lanterns {in the trees,
around my bed, his torso narrows into hips}
floating down the river Lethe {onyx reflection,
prayers set loose to Hades, my soul as his
hands do}
Remember darling, you put {words into my
mouth, my books on the awkward shelves,
my dresses in drawers}
coins on my eyes. I have forgotten you
{The draw of the oars was infinite, I watched
the shore receding, What came after was}
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