Motel
En Route To "Life
Out There"
Excerpt poem from Millennium Hotel
for the left-handed
woman
I
“Women
are getting better
and better”
“or
worse
and worse”
“at
pointing
out”
“situations”
"in
which
men use
sex"
"as
a `substitute
for anger’"
"you're
angry at her when
she...
runs
naked
in place...
because
it brings
up an
earlier
`situation’:
your first summer
alone
in
the country
together
in
a place
where
you knew
no one"
*
And she, rising
first as always,
would assume
a position
naked on
the deck
immersed
in Gödel and
Gordian Knots
in search
of "simple and
synoptic images"
surrounded by her
three inalienable
toys:
forest green
mathematics textbook,
white legal
pad, yellow No. 2
pencil...
These three props
made her body all
the more
erotic – salty
beads of perspiration
glistening
on her skin,
each drop
rolled
one by one
down her
belly or back,
dampening
her mound
or moistening
the crack
between
her cheeks.
I took this in with
one glance
before I
set about fixing
breakfast.
*
This is where
representation
bows out.
It may have been
the dawn
– I can't be sure,
I don't know what –
that set
off no uncertain
trembling.
The stainless steel
paleness of that
hour.
*
The sight of her
in the light
was more
than I could...;
I tried to think
about other things,
rummaged
in the barbed word patience...;
I couldn't keep
from coming on, – her
"no, can't you wait
till later...,”
which
she uttered
sharply,
not cruelly, with
the very tone
that drew
me toward her from
the onset
made me
pursue her against
my pattern
of retreat.
When the women
you had known
began
their
domestic
fantasy
shtick
and
cooked
you a
fatal
duck.
Right. One
where you didn't
have to pick out
the buckshot.
Her coolness made
me hot.
But you would
have the real thing
in a mere matter
of...time.
Lost or found?
Time is only time.
And when did
you last imagine
it apart from place?
Now. And being
here am nowhere.
There is no time. There
is only the exhilaration
of a journey:
departure is as sexual
as light.
She scorned
me only when she
was working.
That left – when
the sun was at its
zenith
in the claustral
noon
or dusk.
You couldn't
wait.
There
was nothing
to be
gained
by rushing
it.
Either way, I lost.
I can't change
how you see the
world.
How the world sees
me.
*
But she wasn't
posing. She
was wagering
that
the man
with whom
she lived
wouldn't
be
compelled
to stare
at her
when she
withheld
nothing
from him
anyway.
Driving west en
route to research
she would do concerning
outer space,
the possibility
of worlds
elsewhere, I was
impatient
for the
sites of my younger
years as well,
nomadic
mounds, ricocheting
red rock canyons,
roads through
eucalyptus groves
toward surfboards
and surge;
the billboard
announcing the oasis
of
Winnemucca,
where the underaged males
could yank
the handles of slot
machines in the urinals...
They could not
be retraced.
The highway
whined its abrasive
song of progress.
Struck numb, struck
dumb by noon,
yet vaguely
turned on from
the long hours
so near to her, and
by which time
her wet crotch spotted
the lightweight khaki-colored
jeans she’d
chosen to live in
for the journey westward.
(She was always
one for uniforms.
Wear one thing
and don’t
waste time
thinking
about
nothing.)
*
How many times a
day, driving westward,
did I want
to say, pull off
the road,
let’s ignore
the burning wind
in the cornfields,
or did give
in, knowing this
woman would say –
“Later! We’ll
be in – by
four.”
“But that’s
four hours from now.”
“Too bad. I’m
not doing it out in the
open.”
“But no one will see.”
“Can’t you take
no...”
*
After the time of
burning in the 117
degrees –
my left
forearm and temples
still on fire
from the
sunset’s fierce
with radium rays,
I shiver en route
to the pool below
the sheer
rise of
rockface, the flash-flood
of stars.
The black water
and the night suddenly
as cold as each other.
It was the kind
of night of which
star-charts are made.
*
THE
APPROACH TO LAS VEGAS
Charred mounds laden
with the air of migratory
creatures.
Dirt roads scratched
in around the lone
highway
as if desperate
men out of low-budget
westerns
were clawing
the earth
for water.
And out of zero
rises – Vegas.
Swathed
in whitish dust.
*
Reaching Vegas,
we chose The Sands
for its
voluminous pools
and auspicious history,
swam, showered,
got between the sheets,
– repeated
the sequence –
staying in the water
as long as our skin
could take it
before taking
our next step toward
entering
the casino.
The restaurant’s
aquarium swarmed
with freshly
flown in fish, which
we ate,
amazed it
could taste so good
in such a wholly
artificial atmosphere .
Gigantic
behind the glass,
the sea –
creatures
cruised the prison
where they lived
out their hours with
no relief
from the
electric light – or
from being watched
by awestruck
tourists, some of
whom
had never traveled
out of their home
state except
to board a plane
and come
here.
*
Gamblers, like wrestlers
seeking to get a
grip
and an advantage
before they begin
grappling,
loosen up their torsos
and arms
at the slots – ignoring
the hopeless odds
against –
then hone
their concentration
on the Wheel:
glitter
of silver, well-wrought.
(Follow the
ball. It’s
akin to meditation.
Sounds more
like mind-control
to me…hypnosis…
If you’re looking
for trouble we can oblige.)
I pocketed my small
winnings at Blackjack
and could
not pull her away
from the crap
table
to come to bed.
How out of place
she looked –
copper skin
flush against the
multifarious
turquoise
of her summer shift,
as if its
material, più pienamente, had
absorbed,
the topaz
we had poured over
in Taos;
erect posture,
quiet demeanor –
among the sweaty,
grizzled, heavy-lidded
gamblers
the gallery of types
throwing the dice
2
End
of August: The
Return
Driving north from
cloudless Santa Cruz
past straw
grass and marshes
with the
air-conditioner on
full blast
we couldn’t
keep from heating
up
the car en route
to Moffet Field
where she
would deliver her
climactic talk
on how close
she had come
to tracking
life out there, to
receiving a single
signal from the
vast silent spaces,
which never
cease to terrify
like the
California summer’s
run
of blue
stasis in the heights.
She was nervous
and you were nervous
for her.
Everything was tinged
with the melancholy
of departure.
The end
of summer foaled
the beginning of
danger.
Goldenrod spread
like lit fuses on
their way
toward igniting
the forest. Bore
into fear.
The cattails fretted tsk
tsk tsk
like old
people on call in
hospital waiting
rooms.
Cicadas clicked
at the shrill hysterical
pitch
of telephone
wires in a mistral.
In other words,
there was more.
Having healed so
much between you
there was
still the earth to
mourn.
When you got
to the motel she
wanted to shower.
I couldn't let her
do it alone.
After the glare
and dust of the drive.
Her summer dress
like having nothing
on.
Her consenting,
unpredictably, to
shower with me.
Her peremptory rubbing
of a towel through
her hair.
Her undoing the
turban she had begun
to wind
until we
were done with our
time of abandon
under the
cool, crisp, white
motel sheets.
Working up a sweat
with the air-conditioner
on full blast.
Then showering again.
Never sated, I watched
her stand before
the mirror
and drag
her wide-toothed
comb through her
wet hair.
(Twisting the amber
handle to loosen
snags.)
Another woman might
have reacted screamingly
and said how
can you think about
that when I'm about
to...
how would you feel if
our roles were reversed?
Enough of the
erotic. Get
to her talk.
It’s so much
easier to say what
makes something bad,
or “what
went wrong in a
relationship”
than to praise without
becoming fulsome,
or all too
general like a rock
song, even a good
one,
without
violating the subject.
You won’t
even...try?
Words stop short
of what it felt like
to watch
her put
forth, always with
stately
carriage
and as few words
and flourishes
as possible, the
gist of her group’s
discoveries;
to fill
the vast domed auditorium
with minimal
concession to academic
foreplay,
wafting with her
left hand her laser
pointer across
the various
grids, charts, maps,
and graphs;
or keep
her poise when reaching
for chalk
that wasn’t
there, and having
to ask twice for
it;
or to stand
alone caged in silence
on the bare
stage – with
gestures – such
as extreme
stillness, I alone
in the audience would
snare
as anxious,
until the slide
projectionist,
half-asleep at his
post, finally
flashed the right
image onto the screen
so she could
isolate the telling
detail:
scatter – with
resemblance to the
dust
of stars that was
almost unfair –
signifying
why no messages were
coming in,
and couldn’t
come anywhere near
for more light years
than I care to consider:
considering that
words
stop short
of what we won’t
be here to hear
the universe
reveal, unravel,
or conceal.
*
Postscript
It – turned
you on to watch?
If that’s
what you’re
getting out of this
I’m lost.
You’re
no stranger to
being lost.
Or you to getting
everything backwards!
The tension we felt
upon departure had
gone,
like a blackbird
rising out of the
reedy wastes.
You felt it – lift?
Palpably. It
left my soul as a
virus leaves the
body
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