A Dog’s Life

Today, I thought of Jerry all the while. Mother got him just after she left dad – a sort of rebound I guess. She got him “used,” she would say, though he wasn’t. The only way to use a dog is to love it.

Somebody found Jerry loping starving along the highway and brought him to the pound. No collar, no chip. An awkward mutt, some sort of shepherd/chow mix with a mottled tongue and a head that was too big. He was a day away from execution when mother walked in.

They made a good pair. He found an empty space in the bed and claimed it. He warned when danger, or the postman, got near. He listened to her gripe about dad. That guy was just a prick, he told her once. There’s nothing else you could have done.

Being away from your mom is a little hard. As a son, a mother’s decline is slightly easier to bear when she has a dog. I admit: I relied on Jerry. I relied on him to keep her company and to keep her safe. He committed to doing both. I didn’t even have to ask.

So, when she called and said that Jerry had a growth in his lung and there was nothing that they could do, I was upset. Naturally, I tried to play the man. I told her that she had given him a good life. I told her that she was doing the right thing. I told her to be proud of their friendship.

And then I hung up the phone and went to court and acted normally. I stepped up to the bench and said whatever I was supposed to say, but every few minutes I’d glance at the clock and shudder at the fast approach of 2:30, the dreaded hour.

At 3:30, I donned my strong man voice and called again. I expected sobs, but heard relief. We decided to try the surgery after all, she said. They told me that it might buy him a year and I looked at him and I could tell that he wasn’t ready, and neither am I.

It’s just a dog’s life, you know? He doesn’t write poetry and he doesn’t write music. He growls when he thinks he should and sometimes he gets it right – but mostly, he doesn’t. Yet, somehow, he walks this lonely path and brightens it. And though it’s a light that lasts as long as memory, it’s also nice to feel its warmth.

The Basin

He still remembers the cold. And the beauty. Even the highway, lined with birches, was beautiful. It was his first time north of Boston. His first time seeing birches. Some of them really were bent forward like girls drying their hair in the sun. Just like the poet said.

The mountains loomed with dignity. The road wound through. He wanted to climb the peaks, to know them more by knowing them differently, but his old life demanded him. The plane would leave Manchester at 6:15.

As he drove, he wondered if to catch the plane would be wrong. He wondered if he should continue on to Littleton, to the roof of America, and live a new life. A life based on his desires, and not his competencies.

He wondered, even though he knew that he had no real talent for his desires. He had always had brains, but never strength. Never ruggedness. Never the right instincts. He could not distinguish berries from poison. He would not hunt.

He was natural to another life. A life of good things, like words, but also one of offices and windows that do not open. Of recycled air and vitaminless light. A life he could endure by sitting in the office, or on the train, and thinking on the moments that seemed to be true life, like the first time that he went to the Basin.

The parking lot was empty and covered in white. He opened the door and there was no sound but the distant Pemigewasset and the sporadic whush of trees shivering off snow.

He walked toward the river and watched the liquid dance behind the evergreens. Clear water running over rock. The crunch beneath his boots. Fox tracks.

The Pemi swirled into the deep bowl that formed the Basin. It was the prime of winter and some of the water had frozen into a curved ice sheet that glistened against the flow. A sign said that Thoreau had once been there. Thoreau, who fished in a stream called time.

He left the Basin, but took it with him. He carried it on the plane over America. He carried it up into tall buildings and down into the subway. Into dark places. Into holding cells with sad prison men. He used it when he needed it, to open the sealed windows and touch the clouds.

The Basin was a treasured moment. A pearl of experience spread unevenly with too few other pearls, on a thread of unknown length.

Thursday Home From Work

He was surprised, when he looked back,
at the things that stood out.
He was on a bench in the very early spring,
the time of year that cummings called mud-
luscious.
A blonde was reading nearby, legs crossed, shoe dangling.
New mothers by tulips yellow, orange, white.
The lonely toll of the flagpole halyard’s hollow clang
while children squealed, delighted by dogs.
Sudden sun, shadowy cool.
On a bench with a sandwich.
Life.

The Runner

Driving, he sees a woman running. On a crosswalk overhead. Her skin behind the wire fence.

The first thing that he should do when he gets home is change into his running clothes. He should leash the dog and run.

He wants to run because he wants to be his best self, but not really because of that, and he knows it. If he runs, it’ll be because of what Mark Twain said – that there is nothing that cannot happen today, and that means maybe he’ll meet the woman and they’ll like each other, and that’s all that he’s ever really wanted in this world.

But that’s not going to happen. He knows it; he’s run before.

He used to run down canopy roads in Southern towns and be dappled by the sun. He used to run along New England streams and listen. It was beautiful, but he was alone and sometimes he felt panicked by his aloneness. By the houses in the distance with the doors and windows closed. Like his view of hell, which has no fire, but only a white emptiness with no sound but his own breathing. A being forgotten by society. A man in Tamms.

And he has run in the city too. Stopped at every light to let the cars pass. People who seem to know where they are going. He does not. He runs up and down streets like it means something.

But still, when he gets home, he should run. For his heart. For his lungs. You’re not flexible enough for a man your age, his wife tells him.

But when he gets home, he doesn’t run. Nor does he wash the dishes. Nor does he fry the sausage, though it soon will turn. Instead, he thinks of Takemitsu, who ruled his mortality by writing In The Woods as he was dying.

He remembers how he once told his wife that he wanted to play In The Woods.

Well then, you should.

But, it might take me three years to do it.

That time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well learn to play it.

Three Poems by Jack Gilbert: or, Whence “The Great Beauties?”

Lately, I’ve been taking Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires to the jail. An attorney was forgotten overnight once. All night alone in one of those small brick rooms. I think that I could handle that if I had The Great Fires with me.

I love how, though short, these poems bore into you. He writes eighty or ninety words and you think about the poem the whole day. It’s humbling, and inspiring.

I also love how, while each poem stands on its own, the collection tells a story. The story is mostly a sad one (in the NPR interview linked to below, Gilbert specifically says that he doesn’t write funny poems because they don’t “get to the insides of things”) about endings: the end of Michiko’s life, the end of his first marriage, the end of a brief, hot affair with a woman in Denmark.

In addition, Gilbert’s love of solitude, travel, and women resonates with me. So, I decided to try it. I decided to try, in a very few words, to capture how I feel about a few of the women who burn. Hence The Great Beauties.

Of course, I can’t compete with Gilbert. In order to show you just how much he is able to say in these short poems, I’ve included three below. I like these very much, but I wouldn’t say that they’re the best in the collection. Those, I leave for you to discover.

[For more on Jack Gilbert, click here and here.]

HIGHLIGHT AND INTERSTICES

We think of lifetimes as mostly the exceptional
and sorrows. Marriage we remember as the children,
vacations, and emergencies. The uncommon parts.
But the best is often when nothing is happening.
The way a mother picks up the child almost without
noticing and carries her across Waller Street
while talking with the other woman. What if she
could keep all of that? Our lives happen between
the memorable. I have lost two thousand habitual
breakfasts with Michiko. What I miss most about
her is that commonplace I can no longer remember.

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

I light the lamp and look at my watch.
Four-thirty. Tap out my shoes
because of the scorpions, and go out
into the field. Such a sweet night.
No moon, but urgent stars. Go back inside
and make hot chocolate on my butane burner.
I search around with the radio through
the skirl of the Levant. “Tea for Two”
in German. Finally, Cleveland playing
the Rams in the rain. It makes me feel
acutely here and everybody somewhere else.

ALMOST HAPPY

The goldfish is dead this morning on the bottom
of her world. The autumn sky is white,
the trees are coming apart in the cold rain.
Loneliness gets closer and closer.
He drinks hot tea and sings off-key:
This train ain’t a going-home train, this train.
This is not a going-home train, this train.
This train ain’t a going-home train ‘cause
my home’s on a gone-away train. That train.

Ying

Her style is different
from Sonya’s. She’s
a smaller girl, with less
mass. Instead, she has a
behind that swoops
with grace. In one
jam, she crouched
like a downhill skier
and slid it wide and took
down three girls before
she herself was knocked
flat. Revenge. That’s fine.
Ying believes in derby.

Sonya

Power of a woman.
She slides on skates
and fishnets strong
enough for sharks
and just as cool. And
just as dangerous.
Dynamo. Shove.
I do not know her.
I just watch and wish.

Beverly

What he thinks about most is the
feeling of being without her. He was
riding in the car and Dave said
John’s party is tonight and that
blonde from the opera will be
there. He leaned back and watched
the clouds through the windshield
and thought about telling Dave
that she had turned him down, but
said you can go if you want.
John and I don’t really get along.

Angela

She had thick black hair and a bright intelligent
face. She was also such a good horn player that
she chose the Strauss over the Glière. He
respected the hell out of that, so he asked her
out and she smiled and said cool beans. They
walked down the outside stairs and she looked
pretty in the sun and they talked happily about
whatever when her heel caught and she gasped
three quick and fell down rolling like in the movies
to the very bottom. He was certain she’d broken
her neck. He rushed and helped pull down
the skirt that had plumed over her head like a blown
umbrella and he noticed that, when she dressed,
she had pulled the hose over her panties. He felt
privileged, like she had shared a secret.
That was an adventure, she said, looking down
at her torn stockings and blooming red knees. Her shoes
were still up the stairs side by side, as though placed there.
He got them for her, and liked how she put her hand
on his shoulder when she slipped them back on.

I Don’t Let Doomsday Bother Me. Do You Let It Bother You?

Today, inspiration comes from Elvis Perkins and Rachel Kramer Bussel, who recently held up a copy of Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and said “it’s not horrible, but I wish there were guys writing about sex in a little less macho of a way.”

The Now

She tried to hide it, but he could tell that she wasn’t ready. At the door, she leaned on the jamb and grimaced. That was when he decided. It was supposed to be about her. For her. Instead, she was doing it for him, and she was suffering again.

He stepped behind her and placed his hand on her right side. You know, he said, it’s raining out there.

Not hard. I’ll be ok.

It’s cold though. And windy.

So?

So, I don’t think that I want to go anymore.

Oh, come on. Yes you do. You’ve been talking about it for weeks.

Now that it’s here, I don’t want to. I’m tired. Let’s sit down on the couch together. I’ll make a fire.

He led her to the couch and arranged the pillows. She sat into them and chuckled. Now that we’re rich enough to afford a nice dinner, she said, we’re too old to enjoy it.

We’ll just enjoy each other without going out. A small flame began to gingerly lick the lower wood. He looked back at her. She was sitting with her head turned sideways against the top of the couch.

Are you ok?

I’m fine.

Does it hurt bad?

No. Not bad.

What are you looking at?

I’m watching the rain snake down the window. I’ve always loved that you know – how the drops fall down like abacus beads.

He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She nestled into him.

I love the sound too, she said. A soft rain against the leaves outside. A fire in here with you. This is very cozy.

I’m glad, but I still want you to have dinner.

No, that’s ok. I’m not hungry.

I want you to eat.

I’m ok, really. I’d just like some tea.

You need food …

Tea will be fine for now. The green one that we got last weekend from T & H.

When he came back, he knelt in front of her. Her eyes were closed.

Hi.

She opened her eyes and smiled. She sipped. It’s perfect. Thank you.

He stood up and kissed her forehead, then he knelt back down.

Why are you watching me like that?

I think you’re beautiful.

Oh please.

I do.

He took the tea and put it on the table next to her, then he lifted his hands toward her.

What are you doing?

I’m taking your top off.

No.

I want to see it.

No.

It can’t be something between us forever. It’s time for you to share it.

He unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it up. Just relax.

He worked her right arm through. Very gently, he threaded out her left. He knelt again.

Now what?

Now the bra.

Dear, she said quietly, I don’t want you to.

I want to, he said. It’s time for me to know you again.

He unclasped the band and slid the straps forward. Her right breast glowed in the firelight. He grasped it and kissed her. Are you ok?

Yes.

I want to do the bandage next.

No. I just wrapped it.

I’ll re-do it for you.

You don’t know how and it takes forever. Plus, the tubes. It’s really ugly …

Lean forward again. Just one more time.

No.

Lean forward.

As he got to the end of the unwrapping, he saw the dots where the tubes guided the seepage. He kept unwrapping. Her skin. The wrinkled gash. The stitches.

She was looking toward the window.

Are you ok?

No.

He kissed the scar. She closed her eyes.

It’s horrible, she said. You must be revolted.

No. Never.

I don’t think they got it all. They’re going to have to take the other one.

He stood up and put his lips on her forehead. His nose in the thinning strands of her hair. He breathed deep and they were young. Her thick hair spread out behind her on the sweaty summer sheets. Grasping his back, breasts rocking. It was the endless time of hope again. It was the endless time of hope. Then she turned, and he was back with her in the now.

Oh my girl, he said, my girl. Don’t talk to me of doomsday; there isn’t any sense to it. I don’t plan to die. Nor should you plan to die.

Let’s See What Gawande Has To Say

Okay, so the last entry wasn’t the greatest, but at least it had a poem by Jack Gilbert.

When too much time passes between posts, I feel that I must write something, even if it is not up to standard. In the spirit of Rachael, perhaps I should resist that temptation and admit it when the best that I can do is simply direct you to something else someone has written that’s worth reading, pondering, and then acting upon.

“This is going to be a piece of cake,” Dellelo recalls thinking when the door closed behind him. Whereas many American supermax prisoners—and most P.O.W.s and hostages—have no idea when they might get out, he knew exactly how long he was going to be there. He drew a calendar on his pad of paper to start counting down the days. He would get a radio and a TV. He could read. No one was going to bother him. And, as his elaborate escape plan showed, he could be patient. “This is their sophisticated security?” he said to himself. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

After a few months without regular social contact, however, his experience proved no different from that of the P.O.W.s or hostages, or the majority of isolated prisoners whom researchers have studied: he started to lose his mind. He talked to himself. He paced back and forth compulsively, shuffling along the same six-foot path for hours on end. Soon, he was having panic attacks, screaming for help. He hallucinated that the colors on the walls were changing. He became enraged by routine noises—the sound of doors opening as the guards made their hourly checks, the sounds of inmates in nearby cells. After a year or so, he was hearing voices on the television talking directly to him. He put the television under his bed, and rarely took it out again.