Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

screams again.
    you wonder how long this can go on.
    PHOTOGRAPH OF MY FATHER IN HIS TWENTY-SECOND YEAR
    October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen I study my father's embarrassed young man's face. Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string of spiny yellow perch, in the other a bottle of Carlsbad beer.
    In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
    against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
    He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity,
    wear his old hat cocked over his ear.
    All his life my father wanted to be bold.
    But the eyes give him away, and the hands
    that limply offer the string of dead perch
    and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you,
    yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor either,
    and don't even know the places to fish?
    HAMID RAMOUZ (1818-1906)
    This morning I began a poem on Hamid Ramouz—
    soldier, scholar, desert explorer—
    who died by his own hand, gunshot, at eighty-eight.
    I had tried to read the dictionary entry on that curious man to my son—we were after something on Raleigh— but he was impatient, and rightly so.
    It happened months ago, the boy is with his mother now, but I remembered the name: Ramouz— and a poem began to take shape.
    All morning I sat at the table,
    hands moving back and forth over limitless waste,
    as I tried to recall that strange life.
    BANKRUPTCY
    Twenty-eight, hairy belly hanging out
    of my undershirt (exempt)
    I lie here on my side
    on the couch (exempt)
    and listen to the strange sound
    of my wife's pleasant voice (also exempt).
    ^We are new arrivals to these small pleasures. Forgive me (I pray the Court) that we have been improvident. Today, my heart, like the front door, stands open for the first time in months.
    THE BAKER
    Then Pancho Villa came to town,
    hanged the mayor
    and summoned the old and infirm
    Count Vronsky to supper.
    Pancho introduced his new girl friend,
    along with her husband in his white apron,
    showed Vronsky his pistol,
    then asked the Count to tell him
    about his unhappy exile in Mexico.
    Later, the talk was of women and horses.
    Both were experts.
    The girl friend giggled
    and fussed with the pearl buttons
    on Pancho's shirt until,
    promptly at midnight, Pancho went to sleep
    with his head on the table.
    The husband crossed himself
    and left the house holding his boots
    without so much as a sign
    to his wife or Vronsky.
    That anonymous husband, barefooted,
    humiliated, trying to save his life, he
    is the hero of this poem.
    IOWA SUMMER
    The paperboy shakes me awake. "I have been dreaming you'd
    come," I tell him, rising from the bed. He is accompanied by a giant Negro from the university who seems itching to get his hands on me. I stall for time. Sweat runs off our faces; we stand waiting. I do not offer them chairs and no one speaks.
    It is only later, after they've gone,
    I realize they have delivered a letter.
    It's a letter from my wife. "What are you doing
    there?' my wife asks. "Are you drinking?'
    I study the postmark for hours. Then it, too, begins to fade.
    I hope someday to forget all this.
    ALCOHOL
    That painting next to the brocaded drapery
    is a Delacroix. This is called a divan
    not a davenport; this item is a settee.
    Notice the ornate legs.
    Put on your tarboosh. Smell the burnt cork
    under your eyes. Adjust your tunic, so.
    Now the red cummerbund and Paris; April 1934.
    A black Citroen waits at the curb.
    The street lamps are lit.
    Give the driver the address, but tell him
    not to hurry, that you have all night.
    When you get there, drink, make love,
    do the shimmy and the beguine.
    And when the sun comes up over the Quarter
    next morning and that pretty woman
    you ve had and had all night
    now wants to go home with you,
    be tender with her, don't do anything
    you'll be sorry for later. Bring her home
    with you in the Citroen, let her sleep
    in a proper bed. Let her
    fall in love with you and you
    with her and then.. .something: alcohol,
    a problem with alcohol, always alcohol—
    what you've really done
    and to someone else, the one
    you meant to love from the start
    It's afternoon, August, sun striking
    the hood of a dusty Ford
    parked on your driveway in San Jose.
    In the front seat a woman
    who is covering her eyes and listening
    to an old song on the radio.
    You stand in the doorway and watch.
    You hear the song. And it is long ago.
    You look for it with the sun in your face.
    But you don't remember.
    You honestly don't remember.
    FOR SEMRA, WITH MARTIAL VIGOR
    How uch do writers make? she