Selected Poems - James Tate Wesleyan Poetry Series

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lifts it high. As the white

      and green boats

      pass, the drops fall on the scrubbed

      decks, on the nets, on the shoulders

      of the nearest ones, and they move up

      the long waterway.

      The crowds watching and waving:

      the Sea Dream, the Normandie,

      the Barbara Coast, the Little Hot

      Dog, the God

      Bless America, the Madame of Q.—

      racing past the last tendrils

      of the warm pudding

      that is Louisiana.

      I thought I knew something

      about loneliness but

      you go to the stockyards

      buy a pig’s ear and sew

      it on your couch. That, you

      said, is my best friend—we

      have spirited talks. Even

      then I thought: a man of

      such exquisite emptiness

      (and you cultivated it so)

      is ground for fine flowers.

      You never got to recline

      in the maternal tradition,

      I never let you. Fate,

      you call it, had other eyes,

      for neither of us ever had

      a counterpart in the way

      familial traditions go.

      I was your brother,

      and you were my unhappy

      neighbor. I pitied you

      the way a mother pities

      her son’s failure. I could

      never find the proper

      approach. I would have

      lent you sugar, mother.

      I think of your blind odor

      too long till I collide with

      barbers, and am suspected.

      The clerk malingers when I

      nod. I am still afraid of

      the natural. Even the

      decrepit animals,

      coveting their papers and

      curbs, awake and go breathing

      through the warm darkness of

      hotel halls. I think that they

      are you coming back from the

      colossal obscurity

      of your exhausted passions,

      and dash to the door again.

      I sit on the tracks,

      a hundred feet from

      earth, fifty from the

      water. Gerald is

      inching toward me

      as grim, slow, and

      determined as a

      season, because he

      has no trade and wants

      none. It’s been nine months

      since I last listened

      to his fate, but I

      know what he will say:

      he’s the fire hydrant

      of the underdog.

      When he reaches my

      point above the creek,

      he sits down without

      salutation, and

      spits profoundly out

      past the edge, and peeks

      for meaning in the

      ripple it brings. He

      scowls. He speaks: when you

      walk down any street

      you see nothing but

      coagulations

      of shit and vomit,

      and I’m sick of it.

      I suggest suicide;

      he prefers murder,

      and spits again for

      the sake of all the

      great devout losers.

      A conductor’s horn

      concerto breaks the

      air, and we, two doomed

      pennies on the track,

      shove off and somersault

      like anesthetized

      fleas, ruffling the

      ideal locomotive

      poised on the water

      with our light, dry bodies.

      Gerald shouts

      terrifically as

      he sails downstream like

      a young man with a

      destination. I

      swim toward shore as

      fast as my boots will

      allow; as always,

      neglecting to drown.

      My muscles unravel

      like spools of ribbon:

      there is not a shadow

      of pain. I will pose

      like this for the rest

      of the afternoon,

      for the remainder

      of all noons. The rain

      is making a valley

      of my dim features.

      I am in Albania,

      I am on the Rhine.

      It is autumn,

      I smell the rain,

      I see children running

      through columbine.

      I am honey,

      I am several winds.

      My nerves dissolve,

      my limbs wither—

      I don’t love you.

      I don’t love you.

      Rodina Feldervatova,

      the community’s black angel—

      well, we come to you,

      having failed to sink

      our

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