Archive

I.

The caddies in the background stare
Down fairways at the latest lies,
And foursomes toss their madras ties
Behind their backs, shift feet, and square
Their shoulders. Another drive implies:
Exurban sprawl is everywhere.

Inside the clubhouse, seersuckered chaps
Escort in pairs each ribboned dress.
Rehearsing their nouvelle noblesse,
The Southern Belles sneak sips of schnapps,
Impress upon their beaus with the bareness
Of their backs to slow, quick, quickly close the gaps.

And down a hallway, past some doors:
Starch, menthylated scent of smoke
Is tracked beneath the help’s non-bespoke
Wingtips. Matte, scuffed, the hardwood floors
Echo orders: sparkling water, rum and coke,
some “Chivas Regal neat, two fingers.”

Propelled by weary daylight, make-
Shift practice fields, and prewar oaks and birches,
In the bower of decorative side porches,
Lacrosse irks the keepers of these historic
Trusts. Everywhere, spring crowds. In nearby churches,
Empty pews wait patiently with clerics.

II.

On repaved Main—past boarded antique
Windowfronts, train tracks, bad real-estate
Investments, the sugar mill, the interstate—
The local dive serves Colt 45 to Sikhs,

The underaged, and prison guards alike.
The sidling precopulate first date
Boasts matching patches, pocket eight-
Balls, love for Guthrie, glass rose stems thick

With tar and memory. What’s due
Is tabbed, walked, rarely paid, past, lent,
And long over— A true embarrassment
Of riches. There’s dry rot everywhere. Tattoos

Fading like a last call song descend
Into the night. One Shipley’s Donuts shop prepares
The batter, frying oil, Easter specials and registers
The line outside. One day begins, another ends.

Off Liberty and 9th, a toddler whines
For breakfast. God Bless Our Goodwill-
Furnished units, the Southwestern Bell bills,
Rexall blush, and popcorn ceilings defining

Home, the mother thinks. She scours
The shelves for cereal and powdered milk,
Her closet for her Sunday’s best sham silk
In time for our most sacred, segregated hours.

Some nights, you sing, in-tune and off
Your rocker, keeping time with two spoons beat
Against your thigh, a sweet
And husky “Down in the Valley”
Until an unexpectoranted cough,
A gasping grand finale

Reminds how near I am to death.
You sleep diagonally in bed, cry out
All night for S—no doubt
Still haunted by her QVC
Deliveries, her baby’s-breath
Bouquet, the sun-brewed tea

She’d spill on any surface—your words
A schizophasic garden I want to tend.
I pray for fear and send
Each intercession up like the thin
Three-harmony Sabbath hymns the birds
Out-sing each week. Church, kin,

The land you cleared each fall for cords
Of winter wood and Balm of Gilead:
All gone to seed. Half-mad,
An avatar of age, gone piece-
Meal, you sing someone else’s words.
Tonight, when silence has lease

On you and all I can afford are lamp-lit
Dreams of planting cognates in the hollow
Of your mind—steed and swallow,
Wife and breath—let me go
To a secret place, un-understand, and admit
The words I do not know.