TABLE-SCARF
By Mary Jane White
ENVOI
Having returned from beyond black borders
Over sundry rivers
I come to our final parting
& bring at last that kiss the departed are freely granted
& call out wailing above your absence
Since separation forbids you hear me
Or take more of warm embrace
O my most wretched endeavor
So surely gone
But now I must pretend a more quiet grief in tribute
As laid before any King in fine austere measure
Take my leave with no regretful tears
& then & forever my senseless one be gone
Go too then & let all be well
TABLE-SCARF
22
You have no art
That is not artless
As I do not
You forget that
& you are never unsure
23
With no obligation to me
That were no matter
24
That turns out to be true
& is inoperative
Here for you
25
As dawn brightens
I have to doubt a bit the marriage of all others
26
There is in this place
No vow even to living a lie
I dislike the fact of it the lie
Whoever I might fool with it
I can never hear it in your voice
Mornings short & square
27
Losing none of your blunt
Compartmentalizations
28
A phone holding its numbers flips open
Here it’s mine
Just let go
Your hold on it
29
As dawn passes letting
A rose-water into the mind
Mushy & slow
Beginning to give or lay claim
To some fairer existence
30
At the door I slide under your eye
My weakness
Dawn your end
Which of us is trickier
31
You come past me as a checkpoint
In your world which is multiple
Duplicitous
Your low-clouded sky
You gaze down
Is never going to live openly
32
For the moment we don’t have the means to
So you attend to the flight of dawn
The moon shining down by its great leave
Green & silver & pink & white
33
No alarm ever just sleeping & laze
& messing up a clean counter
& now waking again & there I slip
With half a season of waiting & leading
& letting slide
Returning too late
Or you turning your back
34
Did I find a number once & was it
The washing machine’s fault
Did you blame the washer
Yes you did
That or the window before you
Saying the small hedge was
35
& then took it back
You can always summon something
With unchanging ease
& look forward to a place
A next one
I believe there is a next place
Never where we rejoice in living
With so little
Such lost time
36
Closed & enclosed
Little–our life as I call it
37
Kept to strict understandings of whatever
38
Dawn when the albas rise
When you answer
In mind of one who is going to
Put his shoulder to the sun
39
You hear it
Inside your own head
Intent & square
Short impossible
Transgressions
All imaginable
40
I have my imagination
It is what I have
& my head is closed
& I have forgotten what to say
Or think to say
This is familiar
& I want never to say my piece
Where I go
What shoes I wear
Whose body of effort
Or how it felt
Or how our several wars
Ended once entirely
With the last slip
Before quietude
Or how breath left off
Or how abnormal that was
Those few times
I don’t like to tell
41
Abnormal
One hand loose within the other
42
Or the ornamental tree
I saw how little it changed
Over eight years’ seasons
Its weeping branches hung
With red fruits
Or the small flashlight I gave you to use
The narrow beam of it
Its watery movement
How it lit your way
So it was your way
So you were alone with it
& free to sleep anywhere
To evade nightmare
43
A season inside
Or with the embroidered table-scarf
Were no matter
44
I wondered
With the tree bowed with fruit
Lay in my sheet
As if non-existent
Cold came
Rain came softly then
Then snow
Then sleet’s sound
45
I did think my heart stopped that time
Uneasy it forgot delight
Tracked the dark
That rose across your face as others re-entered your mind
As the phone rang
46
Watched the song of sweeter Sirens spill
Over your ear
As you looked away
47
I did hear singing & the embroidered table-scarf
Was nothing to speak of
48
As you spoke softly to re-set & replace
One slipping away piece
49
So sleep lay far off
Where once
I was immortal
& now this
50
Dawn & unease
A welcome silence after the chorus
The winter wrens make
Where I am
Eternally here
To hear them
DRUMS
51
It seems you were not stale
Nor was our escapade
52
Look back look back
I’ll never grow weary
There is no exhausting your story
53
Civilization not that you credit it
Does what it can to ease you
54
To have known you could go in X short days
& that you might never
But might
Nothing you could shrug off your back
55
Then & why you remain at large each night
Why your life never seems to lengthen out
Even a short while
56
With freedom to look away
Far off past your back
Why so heedless & why not
57
Under you a day of life is finished
& the imagination of reward intensely present
Drums under the window
So now all is growing ignorance
& confused evasion fading away
58
Into daylight when everyone could see it
For what it was & wasn’t
& more New Year arrived
Abnormally which we noted as abnormal
How would courage matter
Which is no wonder & after we call upon it
We remain unsteady
Speaking about everything else
59
A first happy night of nights
When all we have is scattered out
In a partial soulful imitation of black
& white
60
Then credit this
Path of least resistance
61
& you release me & chasten me this way & that
Nothing tells us this is bad
No stop
Stop now & we never did
Or do
HUMAN MEETING: THE POWER OF ONE AND ON
1
The meeting is scheduled in a room set with a few, hard scattered chairs.
Planned to be a short meeting. Looks to be a strategy One could meet by
Making it run on for two hours—as One has an iron butt, and is angry.
2
The meeting is scheduled in a room with air conditioning. Getting somewhere?
Strategy this time is front-line friendship, and administrative non-commitment.
One notes a violation of the relevant, niggling rules of changing fine-print.
3
The meeting is scheduled on their territory—a trailer with a secretary and copier.
The head of everything and second in command are set to watch One read all
Their paper. Fat man on a tailbone donut. Deadpan, One matches scrap to scrap.
4
The meeting is scheduled out of town, closer to the source of power and money.
Arrangements are circular, in accord with current theory. All agree to face
A perfectly ignorant third party. Some sullen, and One confident. Not an end to it.
5
The meeting is in the County Courthouse—public, neutral, local ground. The elegant
Court reporter takes the hearing down. One testifies, and cries—uncomfortable for
Everyone else. Readily admits mouthing fuck to the front-line souls who fucked it up.
6
The meeting adjourns to conference phone. One thinks better without eye contact.
Lower levels weigh in, and are excused to duty. Strategy now: Give it up: an offer One
Won’t refuse: honey—a quaver—some way for Some to pass over One and On.
About the Author:
Mary Jane White: MFA Iowa Writers’ Workshop, NEA Fellowships in both poetry and translation, Bread Loaf Scholar in both poetry and translation, Squaw Valley and Writers In Paradise Scholar, Starry Sky to Starry Sky, (Holy Cow! Press 1988).