Come on All You Ghosts (4 page)

Today I read about the factory

where they make the custom rolling ladders

everyone has probably seen

rising through silent rooms

full of boxes or shelves

crossed by motes in the sun

#5 is my favorite

made of black walnut

with its hinge that folds a small surface out

for reading or placing

books on as you shelve them

it's easy to imagine working in a library

for me at least there is something shameful

about how clearly I can see it

like I am thinking something important is not

I say tomorrow waits for me

but I don't know

if I knew anything about the wars

besides what I have been safely told

I might understand

why they call him a maverick

when he is really just a horse

a horse like me except with dark eyes

terrible from his useless suffering

and the sky

through the oval aperture

above your head in the form

of light that bounces

a little then rests on the walls

and also in the form of whatever colors

you can see and maybe

if you're lucky clouds

pours through

maybe it's obvious

and peacefully alien like a young nun

walking past the local establishments

in a university town in summer

where it's always despite the superficial changes

the same time

even the rain

feels like rain after the evacuation

and even happiness

feels like having survived something

I can't remember

This morning I rode my gray metal bike

through the city throwing its trucks at me,

sometimes along the narrow designated

lanes with white painted symbolic bicyclists

so close to the cars too close to my shoulders,

and sometimes down alleys where people

on piles of clothes lie sleeping or smoking

or talking in the shade. Cars parked there

have signs in their windows that the doors

are unlocked and there is no radio.

It is remarkable to me that downtown

is always so remarkable to me. Every single

time I feel so shiny mixing my intention

with all the other lives, each so much

more interesting and easy for me to imagine

than the tourists muttering to each other

over their maps in some garbled

by traffic or wind foreign language I never

quite hear. From my window the old

brick factory building with its large white

graceful letters seems to be actually

proudly saying
WILLIAM HENRY STEEL

to the sky, the building floats, up and to

the right but it's the clouds of course

that move. Or is it? The earth moves,

farther off a squat little tower with three

huge metal cylinders that must be

for sending some invisible electric

particles out into the city. I only feel

free when I am working, that is writing

this book about a pair of zombie detectives

who painstakingly follow clues they think

are hidden in an authentic tuscan cookbook.

It is really more a sort of transcribing,

every day I close my eyes and see

them in an ancient yet modern high ceilinged

earth-toned kitchen, laughing as they

blunder through the recipes, each day

a little closer towards the name of their killer

whose face will soon to all of us be clear.

They have a little zombie dog, I name him

William Henry Steel, and this will be

my great work time has brought me here to do.

I'm staring out the window at an aluminum shed.

Periodically late March sun against its roof

flashes just randomly enough not to be a message.

A dog has wandered into the yard. He

keeps crouching until his balls I presume

touch the ice and he jumps and yelps.

What I find hilarious shames me. I am

house sitting. I am sitting in the house

watching
ESPN
. Daisuke pronounced

Dice K Matsuzaka throws a gyroball, very

slowly it seems to but does not spin

like a green dress on a mannequin in the sun.

I grow hungry awaiting instructions.

On television the cherry blossom festival

has begun. Already the trees have started

to bloom, along the edges their white

leaves turn a slightly deathly darker red.

Every spring amid the day we light

a giant paper lantern the Japanese presented

to us in 1951. Here I am hanging

a black light bulb in an enormous desert for you.

From what? People, I grew up a wonderful

sullen boy close enough to the capitol

building to dream of hitting it with a stick,

but did not. Inside there's an arch

the exact color of the sky, under it anyone

can stand and barely speak and all the way

across the rotunda someone else can hear.

Now it is known as the Millard Fillmore

spot, but only to me. The world's last

remaining Whig, I lie on my back thinking

we must defeat them, but later, after

this final highlight. A giant foam finger

the color of a fabulous foreign lime appears.

I put it on. Wildly I am cheering for nothing. So much

for someone who doesn't remember his dreams.

This blue vinyl couch

you bought is winter sky color,

blue but also a little white

with cracks like the robin's egg

that fell onto the balcony.

The railing is painted

that green generally intended

by the authorities to make you feel

you are not even intentionally

being punished. For weeks

I did nothing but dream

I was writing a letter

to my younger self full

of useless benevolent warnings.

I wasn't lonely, I was 22

and knew lots of things

I've now forgotten like how

they made the great rivers in Siberia

run backward, there's a city

called Ólafsfjörður where every

winter hulls are left locked

in ice so they do not rust,

and what all of that had

to do with me. Now on my back

in Minnesota I am reading

about phlox. The blue

phlox is blue and can grow

to such great heights it will

no longer fit in any more poems.

Unlike in the Young Drift Plains

or southern tip of the Canadian Shield

glaciers here did not as they

melted deposit fertile soil,

only boulders and stones. I see

a squirrel I recognize. It's so

silent I can hear his onyx nails

click on the frozen snow.

He watches a tree until it moves.

He has one main and an alternate nest,

and lives with other squirrels

in a temporary winter community

called an aggregation. I hope

no great watchman comes

with claws to take him

in the night before he can master

techniques of gliding

from tree to tree, so he can

find just what he needs, for that

is what he is looking for.

Under the dark blue pre-night sky I stood

holding a flag I had cut from an obsolete windbreaker

and painted with the green fluorescent initials

of our brand new organization. Because of some

quality of the disintegrated light everyone

was a silhouette. William teetered on stilts beneath

the unmistakable hat of Abraham Lincoln. Lula

was the adorable giant robotic rabbit that marched

through our favorite television program harmlessly

ruining the plans of the space fleet authorities

as they endlessly circled our atmosphere in the not

too distant future, waiting for enemy beings

or rogue asteroids that never came. We were

a ragtag collection of young collectors.

We felt enthusiasm for the tentative friendships

we had after long years of hiding from each other

on the breezeway at last and almost too late

aggregated to protect our enthusiasms. Someone's

pet cat was lazily stalking someone else's

giant pet snail. It was all too good to be true

or last. Soon we would all be graduating and along

would amble the appropriate goons to gather

us into the welcoming arms of our new apprenticeships.

We knew if we went wherever we wanted

the starry wizards would guide us, and

if we didn't we would never see them again.

Friends, what is beauty? Right now for me these paper replicas

I glanced at in a book I did not buy.
Paper Toys of the World.
I hardly

think of anyone but myself. For a little while right now

I know many tiny pagodas were built with knowledge they are not

meant to last. There was paper and there was time someone

had to consider, time no one was in crisis, time no one was dying.

I think each breath the maker sent through them is like

a trusting class of architects sent through an ancient building

where used to be copied terrifying decrees. I bet people

who build pagodas are people who think they won't ever see them.

That thought is true, people know people and I am one. I like

saying this morning in Houston contains many tiny pagodas of wishing

for better things for people we do not know. I like knowing

somewhere social workers consider their clients. Last night Tonya said

I worry too much, she said it softly and firmly because she hardly knows me

and knew I worry I worry she's wrong. Here she is in my thoughts

along with all this beautiful silver fear, beautiful because

it with a silver penumbra protects the family readying itself

for school and work. So I choose to believe and choose to ask you

to believe it too. Today we are driving through the Painted Desert

where a few people live and breathe, it seems possible, Vic says look out

the window and feel and that's what I'm going to do.

Your eyes are not always brown. In

the wild of our backyard they are light

green like a sunny day reflected

in the eyes of a frog looking

at another frog. I love your love,

it feels dispensed from a metal tap

attached to a big vat gleaming

in a giant room full of shiny whispers.

I also love tasting you after a difficult

day doing nothing assiduously.

Diamond factory, sentient mischievous

metal fruit hanging from the trees

in a museum people wander into thinking

for once I am not shopping. I admire

and fear you, to me you are an abyss

I cross towards you. Just look

directly into my face you said and I felt

everything stop trying to fit. And

the marching band took a deep collective

breath and plunged back into its song.

Everything I know about birds

is I can't remember plus

two of the four mourning

also known as rain

doves, the young ones

born in my back yard

just this April. I saw

them moving their wings

very rapidly in a back

and forth motion

particular to their species.

Monica said it means

they want to be fed.

Their parents are likely

deeper in the stand

of trees being careful.

The wind has a metal hand.

Around them the city

explodes with helicopters

and tourists but here

on Francisco Street where

you also live this yard

is protected but not quiet.

I can hear the Russian

woman talking out

the window, I catch

a few words, one

of which sounds like

“object force.” It makes

me think of Anna

who is probably married

to that Finnish Brazilian

martial arts instructor.

That was afternoon.

Now it is later,

much, the absolute

worst pure center

of night, for an hour

in bed I resisted coming

here to my desk

to search for those terrible

destructive questions still

hiding from me.

Do you do that? Or

is there some other way?

I thought I might

but I can't see

the yard at all, just

some yellow safety

lights in the alley. I try

to keep the chair

from creaking, I know

Sarah knows in her sleep

I am in my study,

disturbed. I wish

I could send the word

asylum out very far

into the air like a clear

colorless substance

all my friends could

breathe in sleep, you

can never protect

everyone. That constant

humming sound is time

coming to take us

away from each other.

Or the refrigerator,

keeping the milk cold

and pure. So much

noise all the time

in the city, do you like it?

You must, you stay.

Last week I limped

in my giant ridiculous cast

one block to get coffee

on the corner and sat

outside feeling very sorry

but also happy. You

sat next to me and I was

pretty sure you

were you but I didn't

know. I gave you

my
New York Times

and we talked about torture

and baseball and how

many more weeks

are left for newspapers.

And then you asked me

if I'd ever be able to walk again.

That's what it's like

to be eighty I thought

but I don't know. Nothing's

natural to me anymore.

I forgot to buy a light bulb.

Now in the afternoon

the blades of grass

are completely still. No one

tends a little television

in the Russian woman's window.

All I know is I have tried

for a long time to be useful,

like everyone I am also

always balancing

on the small blade of not

letting other people down.

Now it is getting darker.

Orange nasturtiums

you can go out and gather

and place directly into a salad

are glowing, and pink

roses wander along

the very old green wooden

trellis towards the blue shed

where Ephraim carefully traces

his engineering plans

for great structures

that will never be built

at least in the few

decades of his lifetime

remaining. He walks

with a little hunch towards

me to collect my rent

check and I am holding it

out to him both of us

with matching apologetic smiles.

In Oklahoma once

I ate blueberries, I

recall they tasted like lake.

If dust is particles

of our skin why

is there more each

time I return?

I know tomorrow

I will sit in that dark

before daylight without

a name, and feeling

the last few drops

of water from the shower

still on her shoulders

she will come and stand

next to me where I am

at my desk pushing

against one word feeling

its hinge creak like wind

would a gate if it could feel

anything at all.