orginally published in "The Southern
Review" spring 2002
The Veil
A screen she’s obliged to regard
the world through, dividing her sight
into the compound-thousand eye of
the observant fly, nothing complete,
not quite attached, not quite angry,
somewhere between the point A to point B
destinations of despondency and release.
How did the custom progress, a chief or priest
mandating widows must understand a black
month, six months, a year of nothing
appearing quite bright, the blue sky obscured
to meshy slate or cage, an apple blossom
ashed down a notch, the surprise of light returning
not as warm to the mourner’s face this spring.
[..back..]
The Following Are Measurements of Common Household Products
11 millimeters is the width of this paper clip.
Three and a quarter inches: the length of a Q-tip, unsquished.
54.7: the number of thin, white yards
of dental floss I unwound around my room.
Who knows the diameter of a coffee mug,
you know, the mugs that must never leave the dining hall?
Anyone? Exactly seven centimeters, inside edge to edge,
and that’s if you subtract the built-up filth.
Parents, if you would, please cover the ears of your children,
for measurements follow of a more personal disposition.
For example, the number of years that ticked away
before my first kiss: 16. (All right, 17, if you don’t count Fido.)
The sum of the women I’ve slept with: 375. That’s pounds.
.00004? The length of my manhood, flaccid, in miles.
Some mathematicians complain these figures are imaginary,
like the number of times I lied today divided by zero,
or the measurement of my attention span, in decades, or days,
or microns. Does anyone have a magnifying glass?
A weigh station or a satellite would also come in handy:
I want to know the weight everything I wish I never said,
in tons, and in hectares, the area of my regret.
Please write down the following numbers—
28, 314, pi squared, one billion and five—
should they be required for your next calculation,
for any measurement you desire.
I’m busy figuring the distance in the photo
above my desk, the distance my mother
must look through, from her eyes
in the afterlife to mine. I guess it’s infinite,
divided by two, times about nine.
[..back..]
Unemployed
My occupation is to walk the receded stream bed, gather the too-sharp glass chips and toss them back.
My profession is to collect seed pods and burrs along my cuffs, sit and pick them from my moss-colored cardigan and upset the ecosystem of the back lawn.
My line of workÑand it is workÑis simple: carry the scent of oatmeal and Earl Grey tea behind the auto parts shop, where I arrange a meeting between a stagnant puddle and the bottom of my sandal.
What do I do? What do I do? I search for what the day does not reveal. I stand in a trapezoid of light cast by the kitchen window after the townÕs asleep, contemplating fatigue.
I have a careerÑlisten closely and IÕll tell trade secrets from the offices of parked cars, the commerce of ants.
My labors are many. My job is not to know. I have so much to do.
[..back..]
Clothes Catalogue
O Victoria, my soul,
J. Crew, my sinew,
L.L. Bean my every breath.
You drive me down the driveway
to my mailbox, high heels
blistering the backs of my feet.
I need your sandwashed silk
against my nape, fairisle cotton,
crinkled rayon, linen bursting
with floral prints, the ribbed chenille,
your zip-neck French terry knit
against my breasts.
Everything fur-lined, please,
pleated, ruffled along the neck-line,
brushed, poor boy ribbed, low cut.
With you I'm lost between color and taste,
between scent and the twists of shade
when I run through your pages:
smoky sage, tuscan, ecru, mousse.
Persimmon, sachet, caramel, squash.
Tarragon, plumberry. Marsh.
In my mouth I take your tangle
of luscious names, a hornet swarm
set loose in the alphabet,
stinging me and my checkbook.
Like your models, I want to amble
in front of cozy, Nantucket homes,
hand bent smooth at the wrist
and tucked in my pocket like a caught bird,
nothing but appointments with goldenrod,
forest, and sun. I want their smiles,
lush smirks and inviting teeth,
their baby doll looks, perfect fingers
at work on a shaft of stiff, beige wheat.
Ah, to be pensive, downcast,
alone in a single snapshot
but a family on the page,
to walk slow, my rolling skirt
a landscape of sun-dried grain,
abandoned to the breeze
of a huge steel fan.
O dear Tweeds, to be vacant,
to have a breast pocket,
to own a dot-print, silk twill shirt.
After you abandon me, I am spent.
[..back..]
Sacred Explosions
As today’s weapons of mass destruction go
the human bomb is cheap—
apart from a willing man, you need
only such items as nails, a battery,
gunpowder, a short cable, and a simple switch
you might use to flick on the light
above your sleeping child. Total cost:
150 dollars. Less expensive than
the bus ride to a distant Israeli city.
Those who we turn away return again
and again, pestering us, pleading
to be accepted. We ask the young men why
they wish so badly to become
human bombs. To cause additional deaths,
we ask, Can you wait, not flinching,
for your fellow cell member,
before exploding yourself?
They become intimately familiar
with what they are about to do—
then they can greet death like an old friend.
Fear? Fear derives from fervent desire for success.
Don’t refer to their deeds as
“suicide”— which is forbidden in our religion—
“sacred explosions” is the preferred term.
It is difficult to select only a few.
Beneath the thumb lies the afterlife—
where even the lowest in rank will have ten times
the like of this world, and they will have
whatever they desire and ten times like it.
Pressing the detonator opens the shortest circuit—
clearing the path, so the soul of a martyr
can be carried to Paradise in the bosom of green birds.
Based in part on interviews with Palestinian “suicide bombers,” their families and leaders, as reported in “An Arsenal of Believers” by Nasra Hassan, The New Yorker, Nov. 19, 2001