Copia (7 page)

T
ERRA
N
ULLIUS

The poem in which we drive an hour to the beach and Uncle Dave doesn't get out of his lawn chair once.

The poem in which we left the yellow plastic shovel behind and everyone is bereft.

The poem in which I can't stop talking about how you walked deep into Lake Erie and the water was still only up to your knees when you turned into a speck past the rock jetty.

The poem in which everyone listens to celebrity gossip in the car on the way back.

The poem in which I pontificate on how ugly the fiancée of that Jonas brother is, and how they're too young to get married, and how my grandmother's old neighbor would have said, “Ugly? She can't help that she's ugly. It's that she's so stupid,” and I would have yelled at her for assuming that all former hairdressers are dim.

The poem in which I turn into my grandmother's old neighbor.

The poem in which I remember very clearly how they both stored tissues in their bras.

The poem in which I think about how this would horrify your mother—the pendulous breasts, the moist tissues, the dipping into the cleavage to retrieve anything.

The poem in which your mother tries not to wince when I order whatever I want from the menu despite her coupon for two medium 1-topping pizzas.

The poem in which I try to find a deeper meaning for why I notice the woman ahead of us in line at Johnny's Liquor Store who buys a pack of menthols and asks the guy behind the counter if he knows her good-for-nothing brother. She has hair that looks like cats got at a skein of yarn, and a tattoo above her ankle that's dark and unspecified. It's far enough above her ankle that it's nearly midcalf—like her ankle and calf are two different countries and the tattoo got lost in the borderlands on the way to its actual destination.

The poem in which I am territory that is under dispute and no one will occupy it because of fear and uncertainty.

The poem in which I reach the conclusion that this feeling is inspired by your mother and the way she hums out-of-season carols while doing kitchen tasks, though it's not really about the humming but rather the time she asked me to light the Hanukkah candles in the attic because it would be better if they were out of the way for the Christmas party.

The poem in which you and I are in line waiting to buy a mixed six-pack of Great Lakes and I am staring at a stranger's tattoo and thinking about the fact that I am not Anne Frank while the baby is in the car with your mother.

The poem in which I go into Walmart and buy the baby an olive-green cap that looks suspiciously like Fidel Castro's.

The poem in which I could eradicate the fact that I ever went into Walmart and bought anything so the baby can one day start a revolution.

The poem in which we see a couple on the highway median in a stalled-out Buick and don't stop to help.

The poem in which the highway median looks like the spit of land between two enemy trenches and I feel a deep longing for my childhood.

The poem in which I remember, for no apparent reason, the tornado instructions taped to the sides of all the filing cabinets in one office I worked in that was on the top floor of a mostly abandoned mall in Overland Park, Kansas. All that was left: decorative fountains, floor tiles, mirrored ceilings, Nearly Famous Pizza, the carcass of Sears.

The poem in which we leave Northeastern Ohio. The poem in which we return to Northeastern Ohio.

The poem in which it is night and we are lost in Northeastern Ohio and we keep passing Amish buggies adorned with reflective tape.

The poem in which the moon is a vehicle for content, and is far less than a perfect reflector of anything.

The poem in which we are all in some kind of limbo.

C
OSMOGONY
/P
ROGENY

Here there is no lasting city;

instead, an immense field

of vision which is not necessarily

hazy, but filled with structures

that begin to list and spit brick

& gutters & vinyl siding &

we cannot remain standing

in this apocryphal landscape

where or when there is still

the possibility of a miracle

happening in the form of

signs & wonders, wonders

& signs: CheckCashing or

WorkWear or BeautyMart.

But we remain standing.

So rise up, whoever you are,

the last hope for this place

where unused billboards

proffer see-through clues

to the future. To drive

along the highway is to

see life with its unanswered

questions and structures

of want. Rise up,

tract houses. Fall in line

and march to the sounds

of a thousand backhoes

beeping in reverse, prophesying

omygod
&
comeholyspirit
,

singing of everything they've

taken away and razed over.

Remember: I still believe

we will find you in the rubble

of the city, in the cast-off stones

lining this place. And when

Hannah wept she was not drunk,

though some days I am drunk

and do not weep, and some days

I weep and do not drink.

I don't often pray, blessmyheart,

but if I did, I would veer

from fixed liturgy and speak

in tongues about how much love

I've plowed under waiting

for you. One day I will crouch

anywhere but in a pew

and tell you that most

origins are mysterious

while simultaneously

combing the crowd

for some signal or

synchronicity.

The truth is

even cities

are ephemeral

(Say farewell!)

& woe to us

if we reject

that rule.

The truth is

I'm quick

to bow down

at the altars

of anyone's wild

& imperfect feet.

A
RS
P
OETICA WITH
R
ADIO
A
PPARATUS
, T
ODDLER, &
D
UCKS

A local convention of ham radio operators

at the duck pond's gazebo have erected towers

to try to bounce their signals off the moon.

My son thinks their metal scaffolding

is the Eiffel Tower—thinks all metal towers

are the Eiffel Tower ever since we read him

that book which features a world-traveling pig.

We have come to feed the ducks stale potato buns.

Every time my son tosses a hunk he is mobbed

by ducks whose feathers glint in the light.

They both terrify and delight him. Each duck

has an electric blue racing stripe, a wing-feather

the color of a vintage GTO. Pontiac may have

gone under, but the ham radio operators tout

survivability with their giant portable antennae.

“We can jury-rig something on any spot,”

one guy in a fishing hat tells me, and this

earth-moon-earth communicating

happening just for today is apparently

the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest

when it comes to radiograms since the moon

is a poor sounding board—since the moon

is spinning and has a rough surface that disrupts

signals. I try to explain to my son that these men

are talking through the air, but I forget

that he doesn't know about air. He knows

about outer space and understands

that we live on earth and that the Eiffel Tower

has something, now, to do with the ducks

and the moon. But how to explain an element

that's invisible, that surrounds us, that covers

the earth like an orange peel and keeps us alive?

There is no wind so I tell him to spin around

and listen. But what he hears, I know, instead

of the swish of air shushing around his ears

is a motley Doppler effect: ducks honking

and the clang of these radio buffs

tinkering with a rusting web of metal, murmuring

to unseen strangers who only know them

by their handles, their call signs, each letter made clear

with a noun—Victor Whiskey X-ray Papa Foxtrot Echo—

who, for today only, are letting passersby try out

their equipment, send and accept real messages,

like ONE (everyone safe here—please don't worry),

or TWO (coming home as soon as possible).

These voices spilling into space, reflecting radio

waves off the aurora borealis, off ionized trails

of meteors, waiting for someone to pluck them

from the darkness, decipher their code.

P
ORTO
, P
ORTARE
, P
ORTAVI
, P
ORTATUS

At the airport the conveyor bears small yachts shaped like luggage

into the distance, and I am headed, when they let me pass

through the x-ray arch, toward home. There is a distance

sometimes greater than this between us, since you are in

another state—gaseous, solid, liquid, light—and I admit

I am often absent lately from whatever is happening

in a given room. Portatus. Having been carried from one place

to another, I will be delayed in this terminal in Akron, Ohio

for the longest dusk, but I do not yet know this. I spend hours

trying to puzzle out the black script running a boy's entire right arm.

He is crew-cut Army, sits in the attached row across from me,

feet up on a digicam rucksack. It's probably Bible, that tattoo,

John or Luke, maybe Timothy, and the boy is beautiful, the boy

is totally unmarred but for his tattoo. When he flips his cell phone

open & shut, open & shut, I want to reach out to stroke his

wheat-colored stubble, ask him what his black ink means.

Portare, to bear.
I still have many things to say to you,

but you cannot bear them now
. Portare bellum: to carry the war.

Before Thanksgiving, we will pull in to the Sunoco off I-78 in Jersey,

where one veteran in hunting camo carries another like a bride

over a threshold. They will be laughing when they chime

through the door of the Quik-Mart. Every footstep and palm-press.

Every machine propelling us forward. Wrecked amen of beverage cases,

clicking gas pumps. Selah hallelujah.
And I will carry you away

beyond Babylon
, a passage, portare, to bear from one place to another,

on one's arms, head, or back. Our bodies bear witness (to the light

to the darkness), bear fruit (lucky lucky), bear the sins of many,

bear whatever it is into the distance. When our neighbor dies—

the pastor's wife—he calls over, asks me to go through her clothes,

take them home. She would want you to have them, he says.

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry

nothing out
(except our stories). In this story, the door jingles hello.

The man being carried turns his head toward me,

over the shoulder of the man carrying him, and he is laughing.

The word I thought of was mirth:
and Sarah laughed

to herself, and God asked Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh?

Porto. I bring my son inside by the hand, after them.

He has to pee. The bathroom is outside. There is no key,

says the cashier, and I see the laughing man balanced on a stool

at the counter, which is when I notice that he has no legs.

His buddy peruses the beef jerky aisle, and when he turns,

one side of his face is scarred and pitted. The bathroom

is fetid. My small son touches the graffitied tiles,

the toilet seat, asks about the condom machine

bolted to the wall, and I stumble through some answer

about adult things, about protection. He does not ask

about the soldier with no legs. Portant. They carry.

Outside, their pickup is filled with hunting gear,

camo tarps, a wheelchair, a USMC sticker. Portavi.

I have carried my son and I will not bear another one.

My neighbor's name was Ruth, and before she died I was often

tempted to ask her to pray for me, as if Jesus could cure

our secondary infertility. That story of him touching the bier.

Then the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, get up.”

And he told the mother not to weep, and her only son sat up,

began to speak. Portamus. You & I, we carry the burden together

of the not-exactly-barren. We were fruitful and now un-,

and some days we are so old that the gray in your hair

gleams like treasure, and others we are so young I get carded

for beer at the Food Lion. In this story, I put off visiting

the neighbor's to go through Ruth's clothes, and instead

get her back issues of
Good Housekeeping
from her husband.

In my story, your face is turned toward me, and we are laughing

at the ancient recipes, and in my story everyone is marked

and we all carry, have been carried, bear up under the weight

of our dead and our living and our injured and injured and injured.

Daily, we bear the weight of more weight forward;

portare is hardly ever said of a light load.