Her Life Is On This Table and Other Poems Read online

plow

  I have some land

  And stubborn pride

  Some calves are born

  Some sheep are shorn

  Some plans are laid

  Or put aside

  And hens need feed

  And fields need seed

  And by my hand

  I do it all

  The hay is pitched

  The harrow hitched

  The furrows made

  Before nightfall

  But wells go dry

  But corn crops die

  But dust swirls and

  The wind keeps blowing

  My future seen

  My fears grow keen

  My prayer I’ve prayed:

  “Lord, keep me going.”

  I have some land

  Some plans are laid

  And by my hand

  The furrows made

  But dust swirls and

  My prayer I’ve prayed:

  “Please, God, just keep me going!”

  April 9, 2013

  First Love, Only Love

  Once, like a planet in thrall to a star

  I circled ’round naked bright Eros

  first with my face to it

  then with my back to it

  never, though, turning away for too long.

  A young student eager to study the world

  if I closed my truant eyes, then would

  the smoke of my thoughts become her,

  and I felt her breath on my face—

  her flesh flushed, her nipples hard and aroused

  her whole body reaching out, moist with desire.

  Almost could I touch that envisioned beauty.

  Almost could I kiss the curve of her mouth.

  In a world in my head

  I stretched out along her

  touching her everywhere

  drinking her all in, all her desire,

  and pouring all mine into her.

  And yet her siren desire for me

  that I drank so often, drank eagerly

  Was but a thin brew and of my own making.

  She my mind's mannequin, made and remade,

  modeled from any girl, anytime, anywhere—

  one passing by, or a stunning face here and there

  seen in a photo or some work of art —

  But nothing too real. I feared it might twist me

  To make it the face of a girl I knew well.

  And then I met Jo, and she kissed me.

  And liked it. And, God, soon she loved me.

  And soon I was in her arms, in her bed, in her head

  everything real, and my eyes now wide open.

  Then, when I saw there behind her eyes,

  consciousness slip away,

  leaving just her hot desire for me—

  then I stood naked in fires of my new sun

  burning like her new star, giving up eagerly

  all of my light for her light.

  May 31, 2012

  Maybe Schrodinger’s Cat Has the Name

  Thank you, yes, good to see you again.

  You interviewed me before, back in Washington…

  I should know your name, but…

  Helen? Yes, Helen.

  Ah, this old memory!

  Well, uh, Helen, I’m always a little surprised

  When someone says they admire my work.

  I live with it every day

  and mostly see the false starts,

  the blind alleys I ran down

  before the math made clear my errors.

  Others see the finished work,

  the mended math, corrected conclusions.

  Yes, I suppose that’s true… um… ah…

  Helen! Of course, yes, Helen. Uh…

  Where were we? Yes!

  Well, I suppose that’s true.

  Even Niels Bohr and, uh, Albert Einstein

  published only their best,

  most finished work.

  You know, I once gave a lecture

  on Einstein at Yale,

  and I couldn’t remember the man’s first name.

  “Einstein was born in Ulm…

  Einstein married Mileva Maric…

  Einstein worked in Berlin at the Patent Office…”

  For an entire hour I talked of him

  avoiding all need to use his first name!

  Later, at a faculty dinner,

  while some professor droned on

  about the Victorian Era—

  “Albert!” I cried out,

  and my, how they jumped!

  Victoria’s husband, you see.

  I’d remembered a childhood prank we played,

  my brother and I.

  We’d call up tobacco shops and say,

  “Do you have Prince Albert in cans?”

  The merchant would say, “Yes, we do.”

  And we would say, “then you’d best let him out!”

  and quickly hang up the phone.

  An old joke.

  Now I just imagine Einstein,

  trapped like a mouse,

  in a Prince Albert tobacco tin.

  In any uncertainty

  I open the lid,

  and whatever his state of existence,

  I always remember his first name is Albert.

  Ah, yes.

  The MacArthur Fellowship.

  They call it the Genius Grant, you know.

  It was a great honor, I can tell you.

  But it always seems a bit too big-headed

  to say I received a Genius Grant.

  You know, uh… um…

  Ah, Helen. Of course, yes, Helen…

  Say, would you mind if an old fellow,

  a harmless one like myself,

  should imagine your pretty young face

  launching a thousand ships?

  No? Then that’s what I shall do.

  Oh, well, as to that,

  it’s all just idle speculation.

  It’s a foolish physicist

  who counts his Nobels

  before they are hatched.

  Oh, you’re welcome.

  A pleasure to speak with you,

  Helen!

  And you, too, sir.

  I see that you’re still a deft hand

  with that video camera.

  And your name is…

  Uh, again?

  Kim Joo-hwan?

  Ah, I see.

  Korean.

  Um, yes…

  I visited there once.

  An impressive city, Seoul…

  Well, I must be going.

  A pleasure to see you again, Joo… um…

  Well… that is… I should say,

  a pleasure to see you both.

  Again.

  April 9, 2013

  The Dwarf’s Tale

  Myranda, her name, and she, to us all,

  was Myranda, the Queen of the Night.

  It’s not that we saw her throned in dark skies,

  fearsome and bright

  against the night’s pall,

  for she glowed like a warming hearth light.

  Her gentle voice was a sweet siren call,

  and the kiss of her lips richest prize.

  Our worship we held as our right.

  We’d come from our mine one night to discover

  her tattered and torn in my bed,

  like some cast off porcelain doll much abused.

  The Dark Queen, she said—

  her own step-mother—

  had sent for a servant who led

  her into these woods, raised a blade high above her,

  then freed her. She, lost and confused,

  seeking help, found our cottage instead.

  Our hearts seek the gold and the silver we mine.

  We’re as rough as our piles of stone.

  But we kept and we cherished this forest-sent sprite,

  and she made our home

  a place far more fine

  than any
thing we’d ever known.

  For she wrapped us around with a love so sublime

  we all felt it holding us tight,

  yet each like it held him alone.

  I loved her in ways I could not reconcile

  with my shyness, my hesitancy.

  Each morning I stood at the door for her kiss,

  my heart set free

  by a word and a smile.

  My day went the better for me

  with vision of her before me the while.

  My muscles grew stronger for this

  as my pick added rock to our pile.

  A year and a day, and then a year more

  her love made us feel more alive.

  At night we would frolic, our mugs brimmed with foam,

  drumming our knives,

  feet pounding the floor!

  Her song like the nectar of hive.

  We knew what the hard lives we led were made for:

  to give that bright beauty a home,

  and help that fey spirit to thrive.

  Then came the Black Queen with silken stay,

  and then with a poisonous comb,

  hiding her royalty in peasant guise.

  Into our home

  she wheedled her way,

  and finding Myranda alone,

  her wicked heart fixed on her innocent prey.

  She almost brought death with her lies.

  We tried to keep strangers away.

  Yet one day we, returned from our mine,

  found Myranda collapsed by the door.

  We pinched her and shook her and bathed her forehead—

  did that, and more—

  her features still fine,

  as if still alive on that floor.

  Could she be gone while her beauty did shine?

  The bitter truth that she was dead

  shook us, each one, to our core.

  Then what we should do we had little doubt.

  In a coffin of quartz from our mine,

  we laid her on bed woven with golden tread.

  Her form supine,

  her eyes looking out,

  from a forest glade circled by pine.

  From the stars that circled her all about,

  a diamond light was shed

  for the girl holding their hearts and mine.

  For two years I visited her, heart-sore,

  while she lay there in her glade.

  One day, in madness, I opened her lid,

  and took from the maid

  just one kiss more—

  all this time had an apple bite stayed

  between her closed lips! I took it and tore

  myself from her sight and I hid,

  having heard sounds a rider had made.

  He sang as he rode, and would have passed by,

  but never that vision could miss.

  What a sight for one who knew not what I knew!

  He stole a kiss—

  and she opened her eye,

  and a breath left her with a soft hiss.

  Startled, he stood; she arose with a sigh—

  I couldn’t believe it was true!

  Then that scamp gave her yet one more kiss.

  They spoke a few minutes, before, with some style,

  he lifted her out of her pall.

  Then up on his steed and he rode her away.

  She through it all,

  gave him a smile.

  Even I could see there was no wall

  between his desire and hers; all the while

  my sudden joy crumbled like clay.

  Them gone, my brothers did call.

  “Who was he?” asked one, as they drew near.

  “She was sitting up— looked quite alive!”

  “I know him! That man is a prince!” said another.

  “It’s a miracle I’ve

  watched transpire here,”

  I said. “Yes, I