Plundered Hearts (19 page)

•

Three cypresses advancing toward me have paused

    By the bulging edge of the river

With its stench of corpses. I can smell it too

    On my fingers. When the trees lean down

To lap the water, they leave the western sky

    Starless, a deformed hole in the night

Where the hunter ought to prowl or the altar

    Stand for its vigil. I can hear dogs,

Both menacing and scared, barking at the trees.

    Behind me, the palms are throwing bones

In a game of chance. I have been told they are

    Palms, and I have known palms by their pine-

Cone trunks and stiff-leafed fronds. They are all speaking

    Of how their dreams, when they follow them,

Have saved their lives, and of how any people

    Who invent just one god are lazy.

They wave their fans but the heat leaves them listless,

    Unable to move. They have fallen

Silent. Then, closer to me now, the words start.

•

When wise men say that others know too little

    Of themselves, think of King Cambyses.

He would slap the serving boy and pound his fist

    On the table, shouting for the wine

From that province in the south, the one for guests,

    The one he’d asked for in the first place.

A candle fell and set fire to a woven

    Basket near the queen’s ladies, who rose

In fear and retired, their hands across their mouths.

    Enraged, the king demanded they stop

And return to their seats, how dare they presume

    To leave before he has said they may.

He called for the dancers but would not watch them.

    He called next for his secretary

But had nothing to say for his wax tablet.

    The look in his eyes was faraway.

His counselor Praexaspes had seen that look

    Too often before, not of desire

But of vacancy, and if a king was not

    Himself the kingdom was in danger.

His eyes searching the room for disloyalty,

    Praexaspes approached—as if to bring

His master word of a small scandal—

    The king’s couch from behind and leaned down

To whisper if he might offer some advice

    To His Majesty. The king grunted.

He who drinks with moderation is prepared

    To command and protect his people,

He said, for the king’s ear alone, then quickly

    Coughed into his fist and backed away.

Cambyses turned and looked him full in the face,

    Then smiled. We shall see, he roared, and called

For more wine, and as he gulped it down, he stared

    At Praexaspes, daring him to look

At anything but the lavish gilded shells,

    One after another, his slaves brought,

Each brimming with the syrupy wine that spilled

    Onto his robe. You think I have lost

Control of myself, he had wanted to say,

    But the words came out confusedly.

The king laughed at himself, then ordered the son

    Of Praexaspes to stand facing him,

In the middle of the room, his left arm raised

    High above his head so he would look

Like a once delicate acacia lightning

    Had struck a limb from and left to grow

Crookedly. The young man at first tried to smile

    At the king and the ladies, but then

Hesitated and glanced toward his old father,

    Who slowly nodded. The son complied.

Cambyses reached out shakily for his bow

    And without ever turning his head

Told his friend he would not only shoot his son

    But shoot him to the very middle

Of his heart. On that last word the arrow streaked,

    The body slumped to the marble floor.

Praexaspes stood there wide-eyed, ashen, silent.

    The king growled at a guard to go cut

Open the dead youth’s chest and bring him the heart.

    It was brought to the king, who held it

Out for the father to see. The arrowhead

    Had gone precisely halfway into

The center of the bloody thing in his hand.

•

And what I first heard sounded like an arrow

    Flashing past me.
Farther,
it had hissed.

But when it happened again, I heard
Father
.

    I backed right up to a tree and felt

A feathery branch on my head, in my hair,

    Back and forth, circling over my head.

Again, behind, soft as a breeze now,
Father.

    But at the same time the cypresses

By the river grew huge and dark and started

    To come closer. A thunderous wind

Made them shudder, parts of them even broke off

    And fell near me, jagged, smeared with mud.

I forgot about the other trees running

    Across the hill and the tree behind

Suddenly seemed to take hold of me and shook

    Me so that I was thrown to the ground

And lay trembling in a bank of leaves and soot.

    It was time I was falling out of.

The trees came from nothing and then disappeared.

•

At the second intermission of
Manon

    We were bored and on a third vodka

When Teddy set his glass on the bar and said

    That he needed to confide in me.

“If I turn a blind eye on the betrayal

    I am admitting two faults of mine.

I am a fool to trust the love of my life,

    And I am willing to let his cruelty

Continue if that means I can overlook

    My own fears of inadequacy—

I’m too old by a decade, too dull in bed,

    Too complacent about faded charms.

If I tell him that, instead of men, I see,

    Say,
trees
walking out of his bedroom

When I return unexpectedly at dawn

    From a business trip, who would I be

Kidding, hmm? The lover I can’t live without?

    Or, jeez, the man I have to live with?”

The lobby chimes meant we had ten minutes left.

    “That last time, the whole apartment … well …

The peonies on the coffee table stank,

    The fridge was full of yogurt gone off,

The light over the bathroom sink had blown out.

    All this in a weekend? A lifetime?

What the hell had I gotten wrong the whole time?

    If he’s never loved me, why can’t he

Have the decency not to spit in my face? …

    Oh, but why am I telling
you
this?

The truth is, nothing in one’s life is deserved.

    Maybe deceit is some form of grace.

Or maybe love is just the ability

    To overlook what is bound to hurt.”

So. Embarrassed by his pain, I let the talk

    Drift back to the night’s performances …

To the French … to
anything
but his story,

    As we took our seats for the third act.

The director’s conceit had set the Gambling Scene

    In a forest whose trees had baize trunks

And rustling gold coins for leaves, though long before

    The charges of cheating flew, my head

Was on my chest. Lukewarm applause around me

    At the curtain scuttled half the dream,

But later, in the cab, some of it came back.

    Teddy, twice his age, glossily lit

From underneath as if in a tabloid shot,

    Was squatting over a cellar hole.

There was a man in the shadows behind him

    Wanting to help. His arms were held out.

Everything on this earth has a natural

    Enemy able to destroy it,

He explained, and told Teddy to dress in black

    Leather encrusted with small mirrors,

Then to go down into the hole with a net

    And capture the hissing basilisk.

Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness,

    He could make out in a far corner

The creature he had been sent to bring to light.

    The cock’s head, the scaly curved body—

None of the fable was true. It was a tree

    Aflame with a scalding light. He stared

Until there were tears in his eyes and nothing

    Else, just tears that ran like a river

Down his face, on whose bank was another tree,

    Branches weeping into the water,

The black shape of the man who stood behind him.

•

I never understood why I had to leave

    The city. I could find my way there

As around the rooms of my own house, its walls

    What held my hand, its stalls and doorways

The spaces between other people, its noise

    A pathway through the darkness silence

Was for me. Perhaps he needed me near trees,

    Near things as large as my memories

Of them. It was a tree that once betrayed me.

    When I was a child and my father

Had taught me his tools and shown me their uses,

    I one day by accident injured

My cousin’s mule. His father had been drinking

    And came demanding that he be paid.

Before my father could discover the truth,

    The man had spotted me and shouted.

I ran and climbed into a neighbor’s thorn tree

    But he came and shook its trunk. I fell.

He grabbed me. The sunlight blazed off his knife blade.

    The slash, a jagged X, crossed through

My face. The cloth they used to soak up the blood

    Has been, as it were, over my eyes

Ever since. The tree I thought would protect me

    Gave me to the dead of night instead.

My father did all of my weeping for me.

    It was not hard to see what I felt,

But when they said of a man that he had been

    
Unfaithful,
or will be
immortal,

It was as if I could understand the word

    
Face
but not entirely realize

It meant
eyes
and
mouth
somehow put together.

    I was thought stupid and kept apart.

Our cares are cowards and never come alone.

    My father died, I was sent away,

My body did not work the way it should have.

    It was my cousin who first heard of

The healer and then told me, dressed me, brought me

    To a man who never asked questions

Except with the fingers of his hand, my scars

    The story he seemed to tell himself.

A hot dry air was blowing. Trees around us

    Wheezed and scolded the dust on their leaves.

Someone had spit on me. I was used to that.

    I felt its contempt dry on my cheek.

The wind grew stronger, too loud to understand

    Anything but the healer’s demand

To open my eyes and tell him what I saw.

    I saw my cousin’s father coming

Toward the tree, his face angry, his mouth open

    But no words in it. Then the tree moved.

All the trees moved, walking away from the man

    And his knife. He shouted after me.

I thought I heard him tell me to look again.

    The tree stopped and I climbed down from it

Into the stranger’s arms, looking at his eyes,

    His mouth. I reached and put my finger

Into it. He stared as I put my finger

    Then into my own mouth. Everything

Around me was so bright I was forced to close

    My eyes. If I ever open them

Again, all I hope to see is my father.

Up early, trying to muffle

the sounds of small tasks,

grinding, pouring, riffling

through yesterday’s attacks

or market slump, then changing

my mind—what matter the rush

to the waiting room or the ring

of some later dubious excuse?—

having decided to return to bed

and finding you curled in the sheet,

a dream fluttering your eyelids,

still unfallen, still asleep,

I thought of the old pilgrim

when, among the fixed stars

in paradise, he sees Adam

suddenly, the first man, there

in a flame that hides his body,

and when it moves to speak,

what is inside seems not free,

not happy, but huge and weak,

like an animal in a sack.

Who had captured him?

What did he want to say?

I lay down beside you again,

not knowing if I’d stay,

not knowing where I’d been.

Love, sending much blood toward the heart, causes many vapors
to issue from the eyes, and the coldness of sadness, retarding the
agitation of these vapors, causes them to change to tears.

—RENÉ DESCARTES

The actor taught to recall his dying pet

Can trick an audience that wants to believe she’s alive

Into swallowing the tears he sheds onstage,

Cordelia’s body in his arms a golden retriever

Once laid to rest in an Idaho backyard.

Or take the mourner who makes her living by wailing

At wakes, hired by kin to help reclaim

From death’s silence the one who lies there unmoved.

Each is prompted by an insincerity

I’ve accused myself of, who weep at Loews

But at the loss of friends am barely upset.

Whenever Mammy climbs the stairs with Melanie,

Heartgrief in her face, explaining that Bonnie

Cannot be locked up inside a casket

Because she has always been afraid of the dark,

My throat tightens, the hot tears surge,

My sleeve hides half the scene, then the whole,

Yet with a pitiably precise flashlight

I can make my way through memories of my father,

Striding toward his open grave pit

Dry-eyed, wondering what I’m expected to say,

Impatient with the strangers who stand there numbly.