of them, ex-heavyweight,
wears an old hunting cap.
he wants to kill, that is catch & eat,
the fish, the other,
medical man, he knows the chances
of that, he thinks it fine
that they should simply hang there
always in the clear water.
the two keep going but they
discuss it as they disappear
into the fading trees & fields & light,
upstream.
TORTURE
—for Stephen Dobyns
You are falling in love again. This time
it is a South American general's daughter.
You want to be stretched on the rack again.
You want to hear awful things said to you
and to admit these things are true.
You want to have unspeakable acts
committed against your person, things
nice people don't talk about in classrooms.
You want to tell everything you know
on Simon Bolivar, on Jorge Luis Borges,
on yourself most of all.
You want to implicate everyone in this!
Even when it's four o'clock in the morning
and the lights are burning still—
those lights that have been burning night and day
in your eyes and brain for two weeks—
and you are dying for a smoke and a lemonade,
but she won't turn off the lights that woman
with the green eyes and little ways about her,
even then you want to be her gaucho.
Dance with me, you imagine hearing her say
as you reach for the empty beaker of water.
Dance with me, she says again and no mistake.
She picks this minute to ask you, hombre,
to get up and dance with her in the nude.
No, you don't have the strength of a fallen leaf,
not the strength of a little reed basket
battered by waves on Lake Titicaca.
But you bound out of bed
just the same, amigo, you dance
across wide open spaces.
BOBBER
On the Columbia River near Vantage, Washington, we fished for whitefish in the winter months; my dad, Swede-Mr. Lindgren—and me. They used belly-reels, pencil-length sinkers, red, yellow, or brown flies baited with maggots. They wanted distance and went clear out there to the edge of the riffle. I fished near shore with a quill bobber and a cane pole.
My dad kept his maggots alive and warm
under his lower lip. Mr. Lindgren didn't drink.
I liked him better than my dad for a time.
He let me steer his car, teased me
about my name "Junior," and said
one day I'd grow into a fine man, remember
all this, and fish with my own son.
But my dad was right. I mean
he kept silent and looked into the river,
worked his tongue, like a thought, behind the bait.
HIGHWAY 991 FROM CHICO
The mallard ducks are down
for the night. They chuckle
in their sleep and dream of Mexico
and Honduras. Watercress
nods in the irrigation ditch
and the tules slump forward, heavy
with blackbirds.
Rice fields float under the moon. Even the wet maple leaves cling to my windshield. I tell you Maryann, I am happy.
THE COUGAR
—for John Haines and Keith Wilson
I stalked a cougar once in a lost box-canyon
off the Columbia River gorge near the town and river
of Klickitat. We were loaded for grouse. October,
gray sky reaching over into Oregon, and beyond,
all the way to California. None of us had been there,
to California, but we knew about that place—they had
restaurants
that let you fill your plate as many times as you wanted.
I stalked a cougar that day,
if stalk is the right word, clumping and scraping along
upwind of the cougar, smoking cigarettes too,
one after the other, a nervous, fat, sweating kid
under the best of circumstances, but that day
I stalked a cougar..
And then I was weaving drunk there in the living room,
fumbling to put it into words, smacked and scattered
with the memory of it after you two had put your stories,
black bear stories, out on the table.
Suddenly I was back in that canyon, in that gone state.
Something I hadn't thought about for years:
how I stalked a cougar that day.
So I told it. Tried to anyway,
Haines and I pretty drunk now. Wilson listening, listening,
then saying, You sure it wasn't a bobcat?
Which I secretly took as a put-down, he from the Southwest,
poet
wears an old hunting cap.
he wants to kill, that is catch & eat,
the fish, the other,
medical man, he knows the chances
of that, he thinks it fine
that they should simply hang there
always in the clear water.
the two keep going but they
discuss it as they disappear
into the fading trees & fields & light,
upstream.
TORTURE
—for Stephen Dobyns
You are falling in love again. This time
it is a South American general's daughter.
You want to be stretched on the rack again.
You want to hear awful things said to you
and to admit these things are true.
You want to have unspeakable acts
committed against your person, things
nice people don't talk about in classrooms.
You want to tell everything you know
on Simon Bolivar, on Jorge Luis Borges,
on yourself most of all.
You want to implicate everyone in this!
Even when it's four o'clock in the morning
and the lights are burning still—
those lights that have been burning night and day
in your eyes and brain for two weeks—
and you are dying for a smoke and a lemonade,
but she won't turn off the lights that woman
with the green eyes and little ways about her,
even then you want to be her gaucho.
Dance with me, you imagine hearing her say
as you reach for the empty beaker of water.
Dance with me, she says again and no mistake.
She picks this minute to ask you, hombre,
to get up and dance with her in the nude.
No, you don't have the strength of a fallen leaf,
not the strength of a little reed basket
battered by waves on Lake Titicaca.
But you bound out of bed
just the same, amigo, you dance
across wide open spaces.
BOBBER
On the Columbia River near Vantage, Washington, we fished for whitefish in the winter months; my dad, Swede-Mr. Lindgren—and me. They used belly-reels, pencil-length sinkers, red, yellow, or brown flies baited with maggots. They wanted distance and went clear out there to the edge of the riffle. I fished near shore with a quill bobber and a cane pole.
My dad kept his maggots alive and warm
under his lower lip. Mr. Lindgren didn't drink.
I liked him better than my dad for a time.
He let me steer his car, teased me
about my name "Junior," and said
one day I'd grow into a fine man, remember
all this, and fish with my own son.
But my dad was right. I mean
he kept silent and looked into the river,
worked his tongue, like a thought, behind the bait.
HIGHWAY 991 FROM CHICO
The mallard ducks are down
for the night. They chuckle
in their sleep and dream of Mexico
and Honduras. Watercress
nods in the irrigation ditch
and the tules slump forward, heavy
with blackbirds.
Rice fields float under the moon. Even the wet maple leaves cling to my windshield. I tell you Maryann, I am happy.
THE COUGAR
—for John Haines and Keith Wilson
I stalked a cougar once in a lost box-canyon
off the Columbia River gorge near the town and river
of Klickitat. We were loaded for grouse. October,
gray sky reaching over into Oregon, and beyond,
all the way to California. None of us had been there,
to California, but we knew about that place—they had
restaurants
that let you fill your plate as many times as you wanted.
I stalked a cougar that day,
if stalk is the right word, clumping and scraping along
upwind of the cougar, smoking cigarettes too,
one after the other, a nervous, fat, sweating kid
under the best of circumstances, but that day
I stalked a cougar..
And then I was weaving drunk there in the living room,
fumbling to put it into words, smacked and scattered
with the memory of it after you two had put your stories,
black bear stories, out on the table.
Suddenly I was back in that canyon, in that gone state.
Something I hadn't thought about for years:
how I stalked a cougar that day.
So I told it. Tried to anyway,
Haines and I pretty drunk now. Wilson listening, listening,
then saying, You sure it wasn't a bobcat?
Which I secretly took as a put-down, he from the Southwest,
poet
Similar Books
