The People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems

  dresses. “oh no,

  read some more, read some

  more!”

  he read one more poem and then he said,

  “this is the last poem that

  I will read.”

  “oh no,” said all the little

  girls in their red and green see-

  through dresses. “oh no,” said

  all the little girls in their tight blue

  jeans with little sewn hearts on them.

  “oh no,” said all the little girls,

  “please read

  more poems!”

  but he was as good as his word.

  he got the poem out and he got down and

  vanished somewhere. as I got up to read

  the little girls wiggled in

  their seats and one of them hissed and

  some of them made interesting remarks to me

  which I will use in a poem at some later date

  because this particular goddamned poem

  has to end somewhere.

  anyway, it was two or three weeks later

  when I got this letter from the poet William

  saying that he did enjoy my reading.

  he was a true gentleman.

  I was in bed with a

  three-day hangover. I lost the envelope

  but I took the letter and folded it

  into one of those paper airplanes

  I had learned to make in grammar

  school. it sailed around the room

  and landed between an old Racing Form

  and a pair of well-worn shorts.

  we have not corresponded since.

  no more of those young men

  my first husband, Retzel, she said,

  flew gliders. he had only one hand.

  he never went down on me even once.

  he wants to meet you, he lives in

  Redondo Beach.

  Redondo Beach, I said, Redondo Beach.

  my next husband,

  Craft, took pills and played the piano all day.

  then he had to have one of his fingers operated on.

  a wart. he was cruel to me. he knows now

  how cruel he was to me.

  where is he now?

  Africa. he’s still in Africa.

  I hitched all over Africa. I bummed down there

  on a boat. I met a man with a

  leopard. he used to take his leopard for a

  walk every day on a chain.

  one day he didn’t show up. his leopard had

  eaten him.

  that’s a funny story.

  I think so too. I like you. you understand

  things. no more of those young men for me,

  those hard bodies. I want you. you’re in control

  of everything.

  I am?

  yes, my next husband,

  Larry, once covered my body with

  rose petals. all those flowers! it was

  lovely but he didn’t make love to me

  again for 2 years. he was such a bad

  lover. you’re a great

  lover.

  I am?

  yes, wouldn’t you like to go to Holland?

  no.

  to Paris?

  no.

  to Africa?

  no.

  Redondo Beach?

  no.

  you’re strange. don’t you like to

  travel?

  I’m sick of that.

  you should have seen me fly Retzel’s glider!

  I was good on that glider.

  but he would never go down on

  me.

  Retzel?

  yes, he’s a publicist now. he makes good

  money.

  some day I’ll tell you about my

  wives.

  I don’t want to hear about your

  wives. I don’t want to hear about

  any of

  them.

  she turned over in bed

  giving me her back and her

  behind.

  kid, I said, tell me more about

  Retzel.

  she turned back toward

  me. you really want to

  hear?

  sure.

  then we lay there on our backs

  and she talked about Retzel

  and I listened.

  two

  beware women grown

  old

  who were never

  anything but

  young.

  legs

  she arrived in a taxi

  completely intoxicated.

  it was

  after one of my long days as

  a May Co. stock boy

  and I sat there

  exhausted and

  sucking at

  my beer and

  looking at her

  in her rumpled state

  spread across the bed

  skirt hiked high.

  I sucked at my drink

  then walked over

  to the bed and lifted

  her skirt higher:

  such a sight

  those glorious legs

  uncovered and helpless.

  she was a great woman with

  great legs.

  we had such tremendous fun

  and much agony together

  for some years

  but she found

  life too hard;

  she died

  34 years ago and

  I haven’t seen

  legs like that

  since

  and I have

  never stopped

  looking.

  Jane’s shoes

  my shoes in the closet like forgotten

  lilies,

  my shoes alone right now,

  like dogs walking dead avenues,

  and I got a letter from a

  woman in a hospital,

  love, she says, love,

  but I do not write back,

  I do not understand myself,

  she sends me photographs of

  herself

  taken in the hospital

  and I remember her on other

  nights,

  not dying,

  her shoes with heels like daggers

  sitting next to mine

  in the closet;

  how those strong nights

  lied to us,

  how those nights became quiet

  finally,

  my shoes alone in the closet now

  flown over by coats and

  awkward shirts,

  and I look into the hole the

  door leaves

  and the walls, and I do not

  write

  back.

  Rimbaud be damned

  it was in Santa Fe.

  we sat up waiting for her.

  she had gone to some art show or some other

  goddamned silly useless thing.

  she was a good artist

  better than many men

  and that was the

  problem.

  “what the hell happened to Helen?”

  “where’s Helen?”

  Helen’s husband, x-husband, was now sitting on the top of a

  hill somewhere with a new blue-eyed whore.

  quite a

  whore: she even wrote

  poetry. Vicki was her name. Vicki w
as now “Mrs.”

  she had exchanged a rich husband for an even

  richer one.

  “Helen asked me not to hate Vicki,” said my hostess,

  “but hell, I can’t even like Vicki.”

  “hell,” said my host, “can’t you

  try?”

  “do you like Vicki?” asked my hostess.

  Vicki had looked good to me. I couldn’t find anything wrong

  with her.

  “where’s Helen?” I asked again. “oh where oh where the hell is

  Helen?”

  “she’ll be here, she’ll be here, she said she was

  coming.”

  Helen showed up 3 hours later.

  she looked like a snake in a green dress, all fluid,

  wild wild, glazed,

  her silver necklace pulsating

  on her throat

  right under my nose.

  she was consumed by 3 simple things:

  drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more:

  youth and beauty.

  it was too much:

  I could not withstand the force of

  her. I kissed her. I kissed her

  again. I was like a schoolboy,

  all my toughness

  gone.

  “let’s get the hell out of here!”

  I told her, ignoring our host and hostess.

  we went next door to her place

  and I sat in her kitchen drinking and

  watching

  her.

  “your body, your body, Jesus!” I told

  her. she was truly beautiful and laughing,

  just like you read about in a novel

  only it never really happens to

  anybody.

  she twisted her body and while humming

  did a lovely dance filled with

  innuendo.

  “baby, I love you,” I said, “baby, I love

  you!”

  we walked down a dark hall hung with a

  crucifix and some of her paintings. we entered

  another large room. I hung on to my

  drink.

  “stay here,” she said.

  I sat on a couch and drank. it seemed

  cold and hollow suddenly and

  I wondered where she had

  gone.

  then I looked around and she was lying on another couch

  naked and smiling

  which was unsettling

  for I am used to undressing my

  women

  and the look of her stark naked there reminded me more of

  my slaughterhouse days than

  it did of Mozart,

  but, of course, who wants to fuck

  Mozart?

  I finished my drink and undressed and I tried

  but I guess I was not much

  it was my fault

  my fault

  and she shoved me

  away.

  I made a few more halfhearted

  tries and then she got up and left.

  I also dressed and then

  I don’t remember much else except

  being pretty drunk.

  but then when she shoved me out into the rain

  I revived.

  the rain was wet the rain was cold the rain was

  freezing.

  “shit,” I said, “shit!” I ran back to her

  door or to the door I thought was her door

  but there seemed to be dozens of doors,

  a series of apartments all

  enjoined.

  I beat on the door I hoped was hers:

  “baby, baby, I don’t want to fuck you! I realize that I am

  a lousy lover! all I want is to get out of this

  goddamned rain!”

  she didn’t reply. I gave up. I ran back to

  my first host’s apartment. I beat on his door.

  it didn’t work. the rain was like ice.

  I looked into an open garage but it was filled with mud and water;

  no place to lie down.

  “let me in!” I screamed. “Jesus! mercy! what have I done?

  what have I failed to do? YOU ARE YOUR BROTHER’S KEEPER!”

  my host came to the door:

  “you are a dirty dog!”

  “I know, but let me in,

  please.”

  he opened the door and I followed him down the

  hall.

  “boy oh boy,” he said, “you are a son-of-a-bitch, you are

  a yellow hound, you aren’t worth a damn!”

  “I know it,” I said.

  “did you tell her that I was an x-con?”

  “hell, no, I wasn’t even thinking of

  you.”

  “then what the hell do you want from

  me?”

  “nothing. you paid the

  train fare down.”

  “you insulted us both. I don’t care about myself but you can’t

  insult my wife. you said to Helen, ‘let’s you and I get the

  hell out of here, these other people are nothing!’”

  “fuck that. you got any whiskey

  left?”

  “in the refrigerator.”

  “thanks.”

  he grunted and climbed into bed beside his

  wife.

  I brought the bottle out to my cot

  and nipped nipped nipped and

  listened to the

  rain. I thought the night was

  over but then he began

  again:

  “I thought you were a great writer

  I thought you were a great man

  that’s why I paid your fare down here

  that’s why I published your poetry

  that’s why I wanted all these people to meet

  you!”

  “all right,” I said, gulping the good whiskey,

  “I’ll leave in the morning. why don’t we all go to

  sleep?”

  “you are really a son-of-a-bitch!

  I never thought you’d be such a son-of-a-bitch!

  why do you always keep your eyes half closed?

  why can’t you look a man in the face?

  why do you always avert your glance?”

  “I dunno, I dunno.”

  “you’re yellow, that’s all: YELLOW!”

  I knew it was true

  and I took a big hit of whiskey and

  said:

  “ya wanna go outside and fight?”

  “hell! you’ve got ten years on me!”

  “I’ll give ya the first

  punch!”

  “you promise you’ll leave in the morning?”

  “sure.”

  Helen heard about me leaving

  from them I guess

  and she came down a little early the next morning to ask if

  she could drive me to the little hotel to catch the bus to

  the train station.

  she still looked good

  even more than before

  dressed in tight pants and Indian moccasins and

  when nobody was looking

  I reached over and pinched her

  foot. she ignored it but did not tell me to

  go to hell

  so I felt all warm

  inside.

  “o.k., I’ll drive him down,” she said to my

&n
bsp; hosts.

  “thanks,” they said.

  I went in to take a

  shit.

  “we hate to see him go,” I heard

  my hosts say.

  “so do I,” she

  said.

  a big turd dropped

  out.

  “I’ll be back at 2 to pick him up,”

  she said.

  “goodbye.”

  “goodbye.”

  when I came out there were 2 Indians sitting there

  with my hosts.

  the Chief said, “I trusted that nigger with 8 bucks

  for 2 four-pound sacks of chili beans. it’s been 2

  weeks and he ain’t back yet. he worked for some cement company.

  lemme have your phone book, I’m gonna find that

  bastard!”

  they introduced me to his squaw. I kissed her on the

  cheek. she giggled. she was about 60 years old and had

  bad legs.

  “I got problems,” said the Chief, and

  then he ripped the blanket off my cot

  and wrapped it around and around himself.

  “I am big Chief,” he said, “all I need is a

  good piece of ass and then to catch that nigger.”

  “don’t look at me,” I told him, “I am

  neither.”

  the Chief looked at

  me. “I think I need a bath,”

  he said.

  he went and climbed into one of the 3 tubs in one of the