LITMIR.BIZ

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great debater.

      And there are a million other things I don’t know about my intellectual capacities.

      Let’s leave emotional ones alone tonite—they’re in worse shape.

      I want so much—to be versatile, charming, warm, deep, intelligent, accomplishing something, loving,

      fooling around, giving instead of getting, cheery not driven, sure not uncertain, possessing not anticipating,

      answers not questions.

       I’m seething lately

      —but it too shall pass.

       FIRST PHOTOS

      The only photo of Jane

      I saw while growing up

      hung in my parents’

      bedroom. She was wearing

      a long raincoat and

      standing on a stair,

      against a tacky interior

      of bronze chevrons.

      Later I will find out

      that Jane was wearing

      a long raincoat the night

      she was killed. What if

      it were the same coat

      as in the picture, the one

      I looked at all those years?

      I arrive at the New York Public Library

      with my two dates, the bare brackets

      of a life. I ask a librarian

      where I might find information

      about an old murder. Was it

      a famous murder? she queries.

      Not really, I say. It was in the family.

      My answer embarrasses me.

      She gives me little slips of paper

      which I fill out and roll up

      then shove into silver tubes

      as long as pinkies. After

      dropping them down a hatch

      I wait for the invisible staff

      to send up dark blue spools

      of the Detroit News from below.

      Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, the spools

      rocket across the lighted screen.

       Ike Fights Heart Setback. Blacks

       End Long Strike at College. Old Foes

       Truman and Nixon Hold

       a Sentimental Visit. “We’ll Be

      on the Moon by July!” Then

      on March 22, 1969, Jane’s face

      suddenly fills the screen.

      Her youth an aura like a

      new haircut—just blatant,

      raw, crushing. A headband

      keeps her brown hair back;

      her lips are parted slightly.

      How she wants. How she

      penetrates, her eyes set back

      in her brow like my mother’s,

      like their father’s: dark,

      obedient, devouring.

      My face stares into hers,

      our thoughts frozen together

      on the cusp of a wave

      just starting to go white-cold, curl

      and fall back into the spitting green.

      When I started looking at Jane,

      she was much older than me.

      How strange her face seems now

      enlarged on this grainy screen,

      now that she will always be

      only twenty-three.

       SPIRIT

       The spirit of Jane

       lives on in you,

      my mother says

      trying to describe

      who I am. I feel like the girl

      in the late-night movie

      who gazes up in horror

      at the portrait of

      her freaky ancestor

      as she realizes

      they wear the same

      gaudy pendant

      round their necks.

      For as long as I can

      remember, my grandfather

      has made the same slip:

      he sits in his kitchen,

      his gelatinous blue eyes

      fixed on me. Well Jane,

      he says, I think I’ll have

       another cup of coffee.

       HOW THE JOURNEY WAS

       TWO LETTERS FROM SWEDISH ANCESTORS, MUSKEGON, MICHIGAN (1910)

       1. How the journey was (Marie)

      I will let you know that I have come to a new land.

      I will tell you now how the journey was.

      Dear you can imagine it was terrible.

      There was a war boat that drove into us

      so there was a big hole in the boat

      and our trunks stood in water.

      We thought we were gone.

      But we were not so far out.

      Then we went with a smaller boat called St. Louis,

      a little terrible boat.

      We were real glad when we came to land.

      We were in Muskegon Tuesday, October 3rd, at night.

      They were nice people that Nels lives with.

      Just young people.

      He was so glad when he saw his little Svea.

      You can’t imagine how fat he is. He thrives good here.

      I have only my man and little Svea

      and it is of course at first I feel alone.

      I don’t think we will ever come to like America

      as good as Sweden.

      I wonder how it is with you. Well,

      you are probably busy with the harvesting.

      Is it a nice fall there at home?

      Here it is changeable.

      One day it rains,

      the next day the sun shines.

       2. A hearty greeting (Nels)

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