Everything We Always Knew Was True - James Galvin

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origami,

      Creased in different shapes

      (Someone must have done this

      For him),

      Triangles, rectangles, squares,

      So he could tell their

      Denominations.

      A door opened,

      And a wind scattered his currency.

      All the people knelt

      To gather his geometries

      And return them

      To his hand.

      Snow

      It was snowing nurses.

      The blond ones

      From ICU.

      They wore those perky

      Little nurse hats,

      White coats.

      They wore surgical

      Masks and carried

      IV needles

      And bags of morphine.

      They had sponges

      In their pockets.

      They landed gently

      On the lawn,

      And looked around,

      Not knowing

      What to do.

      It was snowing

      Polar bears,

      Who loved us for

      Our temporary mercy.

      They landed gently

      On the lawn,

      On all fours,

      But then stood

      On their hind legs

      And sniffed all around,

      Confused.

      It was snowing sawdust

      From the Amish coffin shop.

      It was snowing shuttlecocks

      That looked like pastries

      Or tiny volcanoes.

      At least they looked at home

      Lying on the grass.

      It was snowing pastries.

      It was snowing swaddled babies.

      They landed gently.

      It was snowing wan

      Corpses in dress whites

      That had started out

      As babies with zero

      Knowledge of pastries,

      Or shuttlecocks,

      Or sawdust,

      Or polar bears,

      And had (fate

      Being fatal) of nurses,

      Now, no knowledge

      Or need.

      Bringing Down the House

      When they tore down the auditorium

      The facade went first, rebar snarling out like a

      Nest of centipedes. When they tore down

      The auditorium, excavators

      And backhoes roamed like sci-fi mantises,

      Munching with hydraulic jaws as they

      Hunted and gathered and devoured. When they

      Tore down the auditorium, percussive

      Wrecking balls kept time

      As I thought of years of arts performing magics.

      I saw Baryshnikov twice. Heard Pavarotti,

      Marsalis, and Ma, heard Bobby McFerrin, Bernstein,

      The Kronos Quartet. The stage was a realm of light,

      Sound, and dance. Applause came in tsunamis.

      All in Iowa City, Iowa.

      Then came the real flood. Mud took the stage,

      Mold took a curtain call. They tore down the

      Auditorium, but I remember.

      Wynton Marsalis gave a master class

      To three or four Iowa high school white-bread

      Jazz combos. When Marsalis walked in they throttled

      Their horns and saxophones, and who could blame them?

      They jammed. He taught them to listen to one another

      And respond. “Did you hear that B-flat I played?

      Well why didn’t you do something about it?”

      And, “You can’t get up on a stage then act

      Like you don’t belong there.” He took questions. They had

      A few shy ones. Then one girl, whose parents

      Probably couldn’t afford that night’s performance,

      Asked the best question ever: “Will you

      Play something for us?” By way of answer

      He laid down an impossible Dizzy Gillespie

      Riff. A stunned silence forestalled the applause,

      A silence such as that which overawes

      The din of tearing down the auditorium.

      The Newlywed Acrobats

      —after Chagall

      Even though he is in church, the groom’s long yellow hair lilts in a

      slight breeze from the sacristy.

      He sports gold-sequined tights and

      slippers.

      The bride is decked out in a gold bikini.

      Her breasts are

      two miracles.

      Her smile is, well, blinding.

      He flips the wedding ring

      high into the air like a florin.

      She spears it (did you guess?) on her

      ring finger.

      The priest juggles chalices as they kiss.

      The crowd

      roars joyously as she cartwheels down the aisle.

      The groom does

      back-handsprings and sticks a double flip at the door.

      On the steps,

      an avalanche of confetti.

      Clowns are shot from cannons to the

      right and to the left.

      On golden ropes the couple swings into the

      waiting limo, which looks like a gold coffin being sawed in two and

      appears to split in half as it disappears.

      There happens to be a

      trampoline in front of the hotel.

      They spring each other higher and

      higher

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