Wild Gratitude (3 page)

               that hurries pedestrians home

and follows a fading breath of ashes

                         out of the faded commuter stations.

    Slowly the bridges open their arms

               over the river and the cars

fan out in the mist like a peacock’s

                         feathers, or a deck of luminous cards

    dealt into shadows. This is the hour

               when the tugs slide into their cells

and the gates snap shut behind them, when

                         prisoners stare at their blank ceilings

    and windows are bolted in factories.

               Some of us remember the moon:

it is a tarnished silver ball worn

                         into our memories, a faint smudge

    of light rubbed into the heavy fog.

               In this city even the ginkgoes

turn up their collars in self-protection

                         while the buildings stiffen like hills

    against the wind. And as we hurry home

               in the cold, in our separate

bodies, it takes all our faith to believe

                         these black drapes, this curtain of ash

    will ever rise again in the morning.

It’s that vague feeling of panic

That sweeps over you

Stepping out of the #7 train

At dusk, thinking,
This isn’t me

Crossing a platform with the other

Commuters in the worried half-light

Of evening,
that must be

Someone else
with a newspaper

Rolled tightly under his arm

Crossing the stiff, iron tracks

Behind the train, thinking,
This

Can’t be me
stepping over the tracks

With the other commuters, slowly crossing

The parking lot at the deepest

Moment of the day, wishing

That I were someone else, wishing

I were anyone else but a man

Looking out at himself as if

From a great distance,

Turning the key in his car, starting

His car and swinging it out of the lot,

Watching himself grinding uphill

In a slow fog, climbing past the other

Cars parked on the side of the road,

The cars which seem ominously empty

And strange,

                         and suddenly thinking

With a new wave of nausea

This isn’t me
sitting in this car

Feeling as if I were about to drown

In the blue air,
that must be

Someone else
driving home to his

Wife and children on an ordinary day

Which ends, like other days,

With a man buckled into a steel box,

Steering himself home and trying

Not to panic

In the last moments of nightfall

When the trees and the red-brick houses

Seem to float under green water

And the streets fill up with sea lights.

The dead heat rises for weeks,

Unwanted, unasked for, but suddenly,

Like the answer to a question,

A real summer shower breaks loose

In the middle of August. So think

Of trumpets and cymbals, a young girl

In a sparkling tinsel suit leading

A parade down Fifth Avenue, all

The high school drummers in the city

Banging away at once. Think of

Bottles shattering against a warehouse,

Or a bowl of apricots spilling

From a tenth-floor window: the bright

Rat-a-tat-tat on the hot pavement,

The squeal of adults scurrying

For cover like happy children.

Down the bar, someone says it’s like

The night she fell asleep standing

In the bathroom of a dank tavern

And woke up shivering in an orchard

Of lemon trees at dawn, surprised

By the sudden omnipotence of yellows.

Someone else says it’s like spinning

A huge wheel and winning at roulette,

Or drawing four aces and thinking:

“It’s true, it’s finally happening.”

Look, I’m not saying that the pretty

Girl in the fairy tale really does

Let down her golden hair for all

The poor kids in the neighborhood—

Though maybe she does. But still

I am saying that a simple cloud

Bursts over the city in mid-August

And suddenly, in your lifetime,

Everyone believes in his own luck.

In the middle of the middle of the night

                         it is a dull tom-tom

    thudding in your chest, a ghostly drumroll

               of voices keening in the dark, words

vibrant with echoes, keeping you awake.

The body next to yours is already asleep.

                         Already you’ve lost it

    to invisible caves, the slight stirring

               of leaves in a wet field, the crescent

of another man’s face flaming in the trees.

Outside, the snow falls into yesterday’s snow,

                         tomorrow’s stormy rain.

    But, inside, a moon shivers in the spaces

               between your wife’s outstretched arms, between

her shoulders and her legs, between the skin

of water pulled over her watery lungs

                         and the white egg growing

    larger and larger in her chest. This is

               the same moon that shudders in darkness

inside of darkness, behind your eyes.

Last night you walked along a cold, snowy beach

                         and watched a flock of gulls

    flapping into a drift of stars, a drift

               of flakes thickening on the water

like a mist of empty hands. You paused,

but your dog loped hopelessly downbeach after

                         them, swallowed up by fog,

    too far away to call. It was like this:

               your legs walked a stark beach, but your hands

were at home fastened to your wife’s body.

All night you could feel them rising and falling

                         on the dim waves, helpless

    in moonlight, wanting to be anchors, mouths,

               wanting to be anything else but hands

drifting farther and farther out of reach.

Tonight you’re alive in your own dank forest.

                         And now the body

    sleeping next to yours makes small gaping

               noises, like birds flying overhead

with an alien upwards gesture.

But down here all your bones make music.

                         Down here in the middle

    of the middle of the night, you’re awake

               listening to the steady drumroll of a heart

ghostly with losses, your tribal chant.

Officially, the parade begins at midnight

When the vice-president of sleep calls the assembly

To order while the sergeant-at-arms bangs

A drowsy gavel against the empty brown forehead

Of the podium and all the slumbering senators

Turn over at once, bleary-eyed, weary, and

Still a little drunk, though a few junior

Republicans from Idaho and Mississippi

Rise up in their plush seats to applaud

The honorable gentleman from Alabama calling

For a vote. The burly speaker announces

That the unanimous motion of sleep carries

And on the well-lit corners of Maple and Elm,

On Main Street in small towns and villages

All over America, the children of sleep stand

In plaid nightshirts, rubbing their eyes,

The veterans of sleep surround the flagpole

For that brave radiant moment when the first

Notes of the National Anthem of Night float

Over the bandshell like balloons and then

Drift across the bleachers of the high-school

Football stadium where the janitor and

The assistant principal are preparing to fire

A cannon and spangle the sky with stars.

And now the mayor of sleep shakes hands

With the owner of sleep and the newly elected

President of the Chamber of Commerce, and maybe

He even pecks his wife on her fat cheek.

This is the signal for the prom queen to hop

Into the back seat of a ghostly blue convertible

Driven by her blond boyfriend who is already

Dreaming of the moment when he can park

The triumphant car by the lagoon and slip

His arm around her naked white shoulders.

Because at night in even the smallest towns

Desire spreads through the body like a stain.

That’s why his cousin with the thick glasses,

Braces and skinny blue legs is sobbing

Into her pillow, refusing to dry her eyes

Or comb her hair, refusing to listen

To her mother in pink curlers and a silky

Gray nightgown, even refusing to look up

At her beloved father in maroon pajamas.

Later, she will watch the night parade on

Television, like hotel clerks, night-watchmen,

Prison guards, waitresses in all-night diners,

And—like insomniacs all over the country—

She will stroke the cat and gulp warm milk.

But she won’t see the new junior executive

In the established firm of Bradley & Bradley

Slipping from a motel room in Miami Beach

Registered in Mrs. Bradley’s name; she won’t

See the Young Democrats in massage parlors

Or the Communists and the born-again Christians

Handing out fervent leaflets to pedestrians

Who smile and nod; and she will never see

Naked men touching themselves in dark theaters,

Or whores adjusting their uniforms, or drunk

Conventioneers rubbing pink lipstick out of

Their white collars, muttering excuses.

The greatest moments of the night parade

Take place under the open tent where muscular

Sleepwalkers tiptoe across tightropes, carefully

Holding up umbrellas, and two married acrobats

Float through miles and miles of empty space

Just to hold hands on a wooden platform

Hammered into the air. Everyone laughs

When the clowns of sleep mimic the lions,

Tower over the midgets, and pinch the backsides

Of beautiful bareback riders. And everyone

Drifts home slowly when the half-moon dims

And confetti falls from the sky like applause.

The televisions are droning at the Hotel Insomnia

Where every room is identical and no one feels

Like seeing a parade on a black-and-white screen.

It’s boredom that keeps the businessmen watching

A rerun of the seven o’clock evening news and

The housewives restlessly switching channels

Between a dull soap opera and a musical comedy

About a rich Italian who falls in love with a poor

Girl from southern Iowa. The movie finally ends

And everyone listens to “The Star-Spangled Banner,”

Waiting for the message of blankness that follows

The message of patriotism at the end of every day.

And so all the televisions whiten at dawn,

The radios blur with static. The stragglers

At the town hall and the junior-college gym

Pull down the last orange and black streamers

And snap off the skulls of the last beers

Buried in the cooler. Happy musicians, baton

Twirlers, professional pool players, and

Even the hit men for the syndicate of sleep

All clamp instruments into heavy black cases

While the sheriff leans back in his dark chair

And the sentry dozes off at his dark post

And the custodian of wind vanishes like smoke.

The cedars and pines stand in an ashen trance.

At this hour even the staunchest insomniac

Falls through a gaping hole opening up

In his body like a flower or a fresh grave.

And now the long arm of exhaustion reaches

Across the rooftops to douse the candles.

That’s why no one ever sees the pale trains

Pulling out of subways and abandoned stations

All over the country; no one sees the ghostly

Trucks and gaunt steamers loaded with bodies;

No one sees the blind searchlights or hears

The foghorns bellowing in the early morning.

No one remembers him anymore, a boy

who carried his mattress through the town at dusk

searching for somewhere to sleep, a wild-eyed

relic of the Old World shrieking at a cow

in an open pasture, chattering with the sheep,

sitting alone on the front steps of the church,

gnawing gently at his wrist. He was tall

and ungainly, an awkward swimmer who could swim

the full length of the quarry in an afternoon,

swimming back on his back in the evening, though

he could also sit on the hillside for days

like a dim-witted pelican staring at the fish.

Now that he is little more than a vague memory,

a stock character in old stories, another bewildering

extravagance from the past—like a speckled seal

or an auk slaughtered off the North Atlantic rocks—no

one remembers the day that the village children

convinced him to climb down into an empty well

and then showered him for hours with rocks and mud,

or the night that a drunken soldier slit his tongue

into tiny shreds of cloth, darkened with blood.

He disappeared long ago, like the village itself,

but some mornings you can almost see him again

sleeping on a newspaper in the stairwell, rummaging

through a garbage can in the alley. And some nights

when you are restless and too nervous to sleep

you can almost catch a glimpse of him again

staring at you with glassy, uncomprehending eyes

from the ragged edges of an old photograph

of your grandfather, from the corner of a window

fogging up in the bathroom, from the wet mirror.