My Wicked Wicked Ways: Poems

  there should be something

  to commemorate the pain.

  Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster.

  Till then, Richard, I wish you well.

  I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water,

  and women kinder than I treated you.

  I forget the reasons, but I loved you once,

  remember?

  Maybe in this season, drunk

  and sentimental, I’m willing to admit

  a part of me, crazed and kamikaze,

  ripe for anarchy, loves still.

  For a Southern Man

  Bill, I don’t do laundry

  and I don’t believe in love.

  I believe in bricks.

  And broken windshields.

  And maybe my fist.

  But you’re safe to take

  the road this one time, buddy.

  I’m getting old.

  I’ve learned two things.

  To let go

  clean as kite string.

  And to never wash a man’s clothes.

  These are my rules.

  I want to learn to say

  see you next Tuesday.

  Then drive away.

  The windshield whole.

  The rearview empty of regrets.

  Though now and then

  there are exceptions.

  What I remember of

  a room at dusk

  and how your bones

  continued from a single strand.

  Finger knuckle spine.

  To love too much to leave behind

  a neon sign in northern Georgia,

  pink and blinking THE PINES.

  That laundromat in Landis

  famous for the way

  it makes you sad.

  The blond waitress at Jay’s Diner,

  counting passing cars,

  dreaming of the one that got away.

  THE RODRIGO POEMS

  This is the Hour of Lead—

  Remembered, if outlived,

  as Freezing persons recollect the Snow—

  First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—

  —EMILY DICKINSON

  A woman cutting celery

  is savage

  because a car door slams.

  But he does not come home.

  Miles after thoughts

  have turned from worry,

  have turned to rage,

  a car door slams.

  And she is cutting

  celery and more celery,

  but no familiar stumble

  of the key. Nor

  crooked tug and coy

  apology. No blurred kiss

  to comfort this cruel

  hour and quit those

  sometime fears to sleep. Surely

  love has strayed before.

  Love has come and love has gone

  and love has been away

  before but ultimately

  stays. It must be

  the errant lover of the girl

  across the way who arrives

  at such an independent hour,

  whose rude feet

  startle gravel beyond the borders

  of begonias asleep under the back

  porch light. Not here.

  A thin blond vein

  rises from the corner of her jaw

  like a crack in a porcelain plate.

  A car door slams.

  But he does not come home.

  This is how the story begins.

  Sensuality Plunging Barefoot Into Thorns

  You’re sick.

  So I bring over my television set—

  (it’s okay I hardly ever watch it)—

  soup,

  cards,

  a few books.

  You answer the door

  in pajamas,

  fuzzy slippers,

  a robe

  two sizes too big

  (a gift from your last wife)—

  ridiculous.

  I don’t take off my coat.

  I mean to drop the things and go.

  But just as I’m tugging the door,

  you sneeze

  and pull like a magician

  from your sleeve—

  a handkerchief.

  Red.

  Extraordinary.

  Loud as timbales.

  Already it begins,

  all the miles home—

  a slow smoke without warning.

  In a few weeks

  all you’ll have to do is phone.

  By then

  the handkerchief

  will have done its harm.

  Valparaiso

  you said

  last night

  we are a zoo

  and you

  were right

  we are

  blue

  fur and the open night!

  an animal dance

  on cue

  and continued

  your cigarette

  what are you thinking?

  here

  is the mis-en-scène

  a man

  a woman

  a cigarette

  silhouettes

  against the landscape

  of sheet and pillow

  a pretty

  setting

  one might think

  and why

  should one know better?

  correction

  this is a case

  of mutual

  hunger

  of polite

  request and courteous

  take

  and love

  that rude religion

  is neither

  diffident

  correct

  nor safe

  ours

  is a narcissistic

  yearning

  yours

  a city

  mine

  my necessary

  fame

  no

  do not

  mistake

  this myth

  for love—

  that

  is a different

  kind

  of burning

  I understand it as a kiss

  but not a kiss. This

  gesture, this burning.

  But from an origin

  furthest from the heart.

  I recognize this

  is for me, and yet

  I sense I make no

  difference. I know

  if we say love

  we speak of many things.

  You mean the Buenos Aires moon,

  the blond streetlamps,

  the dance you danced.

  But I know it as the wrist,

  a shoe, a bruise,

  a bone, a stick.

  For All Tuesday Travelers

  I am the middle-of-the-week wife.

  The back-door sneak.

  I wake the next-door neighbors

  who wonder at who arrives so late,

  departs so early.

  Who yearn to know

  the luxury of love delivered.

  Love that comes and goes

  without the ache,

  without the labor.

  It is a good life.

  I would not trade it

  for another wife’s.

  I who am the topic

  of the Wednesday-morning chatter.

  Who in her lone society

  politely sips the breakfast given her.

  Correctly travels with a toothbrush,

  her own comb. Says thank you,

  please, goodbye, and runs along.

  No Mercy

  Your wives left

  without a trace

  Both of them

  They plucked

  their long hair

  from the kitchen sink

  did not forget the ring

  nor the domestic combs

  Not one stray stocking

  did they leave

&
nbsp; Not a fingerprint

  nor a subscription

  to a magazine

  They fled

  Gathered their feathers

  and bobby pins and string

  Left nothing

  Took their towels

  and their initials

  one child

  expensive shoes

  and vamoosed

  Without a clue

  You must’ve said

  something cruel

  You must’ve done

  something mean

  for women to gather

  all of their things

  The world without Rodrigo

  moves

  at a slender pace

  does not mind to hesitate

  undoes one button

  exhales with grace

  walks does not run

  hums

  Rodrigo Returns to the Land and Linen Celebrates

  puffed with air

  the muslin and satin

  the fitted and flat

  the dizzy percale

  and spun cotton

  billowing and snapping

  sun-plumped and flapping

  everywhere! everywhere!

  Beatrice

  No doubt you are still

  waiting endlessly

  for your Beatrice.

  Sudden on the steps

  of a bridge where

  as a boy you waited.

  Hopeless even then.

  Kiss me.

  I am an odd geometry

  of elbows and skin,

  a lopsided symmetry of sin

  and virtue. And you.

  I can feel your eyes

  burning over the horizon

  of my shoulders.

  Rodrigo de Barro

  You are red clay

  and river water, Rodrigo.

  Simple enough.

  This is your skin.

  And from what

  my hands and mouth

  have memorized

  I could shape the myth

  of bones

  into the flutter of collar,

  the arias

  of ladders and spirals.

  Collect the necessary

  snail shells

  and bits of yellow stone.

  Crumble them in my palm.

  Here

  are your eyes.

  I know by heart the salt

  and smoke

  elixir of your neck and fingers—

  my new intoxicant, my bitter liquor!

  And could I tether a thousand

  bees together,

  I would create the zoo of dreams

  that you dream each night.

  But where to find enough

  ignited Alexandrias,

  an explosion of heliotropes

  and roses,

  all the mutinies and revolutions,

  the Hannibals

  and Nebuchadnezzars,

  an army of

  Russian bears,

  25 dancing Lippizaners,

  and one rare white Bengali,

  to burn in the veins,

  to march without end,

  a dagger and

  a silk heart. Oh my cruel

  Bonaparte,

  my loveliest Caesar.

  Rodrigo in the Dark

  Rodrigo, your red tie

  slips from the neck

  with a serious sigh.

  The shirt of many buttons,

  the woolen trousers, and

  the handsome shoes

  forget their reasons for formality

  and take their eager liberty—

  delinquent and lovely without you.

  I like the rudeness of the moon

  that lets me look at you

  without permission,

  the slender bones tossed

  careless as tulip stems,

  the bouquet of shoulders

  the dip and hollow of the skin.

  Without your uniform of havoc

  you are simply a man

  like any other.

  No longer white tiger,

  my rival and keeper.

  Good night, my Bengali.

  This is my pirate hour.

  Count one, two, three—

  Rodrigo snoring beside me.

  Then it is I can begin again,

  to speak of love without apology,

  with only the black mustache listening,

  the beard cynical and stiff.

  The So-and-So’s

  Your other women are well-behaved.

  Your magnolias and Simones.

  Those with the fine brave skin like moon

  and limbs of violin and bones like roses.

  They bloom nocturnal and are done

  with nary a clue behind them.

  Nary a clue. Save one or two.

  Here is the evidence of them.

  Occasionally the plum print

  of a mouth on porcelain.

  And here the strands of mermaids

  discovered on the bathtub shores.

  And now and again, tangled in

  the linen—love’s smell—

  musky, unmistakable,

  terrible as tin.

  But love is nouveau.

  Love is liberal as a general

  and allows. Love with no say so

  in these matters, no X nor claim nor title,

  shuts one wicked eye and courteously

  abides.

  I cannot out

  with such civility.

  I don’t know how to

  go—not mute as snow—

  without my dust and clatter.

  I am no so-and-so.

  I who arrived deliberate as Tuesday

  without my hat and shoes

  with one rude black tattoo

  and purpose thick as pumpkin.

  One day I’ll dangle

  from your neck, public as a jewel.

  One day I’ll write my name on everything

  as certain as a trail of bread.

  I’ll leave my scent of smoke.

  I’ll paint my wrists.

  You’ll see. You’ll see.

  I will not out so easily.

  I was here. As loud as trumpet.

  As real as pebble in the shoe.

  A tiger tooth. A definite voodoo.

  Let me bequeath

  a single pomegranate seed,

  a telltale clue.

  I want to be like you. A who.

  And let them bleed.

  Monsieur Mon Ami

  And now, my pretty one,

  you have announced

  perfunctorily and promptly,

  you will be offing in the morning.

  You say it audibly.

  You say it calmly

  so as not to alarm me.

  I understand the words

  and yet hardly comprehend.

  Where to and when with no warning?

  Paris? Marakesh? São Paulo?

  Where, love, and how without me?

  You pack the lovely clothes.

  The handsome shoes move

  back and forth across the wooden floor.

  Back and forth. Ignore me.

  I trace arabesques in the table dust.

  Say nothing. Not a sound, in fact.

  A good sport.

  Bon voyage, I say,

  and kiss each cheek goodbye.

  Though all the drive home

  the thick heart bleeds.

  An ulcer.

  A toothache.

  A plum.

  Something begins its slow hiss.

  Hysterical. High-pitched.

  The brain clicks like a gun.

  Drought

  Because of pride

  I don’t phone.

  Not me.

  On the contrary

  I place the telephone

  over there.

  Against the wall.

  At the far end of the room.

/>   And stare at it for days

  like cigarettes.

  Oh I’m greedy like a drowned lady.

  I want and want my grief—

  each cell must have its fill—

  and I want more of it.

  It’s worse at night.

  Sky tilts.

  All the dark pours in like sand—

  a gun against the brain.

  Hopeless.

  I dial.

  Ring once…

  twice…finally!

  It’s you.

  Although the voice is little—

  a bee inside a bell.

  Hello; it’s me.

  Then silence like a seam.

  How are you?

  Silence again.

  Fine, fine, I mumble, fine,

  unraveling like string.

  And then I can’t hear myself

  above the racket in the brain.

  By Way of Explanation

  There is—

  I suppose—

  a bit of

  Madagascar

  in me

  I never mention.

  And somehow

  Amazons

  have escaped

  your rapt

  attention.

  The nose

  is strictly

  Egypt

  for your