Cover me

I'm going out

to write

a poem. Keep

firing

over my head.

SOUL MATES

Ah, don't tell me we are soul mates,

sisters, brothers, that we were lovers once

in another incarnation. There are more people

who have looked deep in my eyes and cried

recognition than you have years behind you.

And yet here we are, finishing the

other's sentences, leaping to our feet

in recognition of another link, common

ground, desire, hunger, as if there could

be something new about our old, our ancient bonds

LOVE SOUP

On this night I dream we accompany our child

to the ritual baths, built

deep into the ground, below the vision

of those involved in daily life. So none

unschooled in congress

can see the lovers in their profound

rites, examining their bodies,

learning nakedness,

immersion.

I awake to the stroke of a hand,

move my body flush to my old man.

What wisdom can we leave our children about love.

It is our generation which first exposed

our sores to the air, formed elegant tattoos

from our scars, wrenching joy from pain

that danger shows. We are sitting in the cafe,

watching our daughters walk past the men

they might have loved and meeting

mirrors of their misery, those

who cannot give them joy,

and making the wrong men

miserable.

III

This woman, whose breasts

tumble from her heart, takes her measure

in another's eye—the greater

he is, the larger the reflection,

and the farther away

the more of herself she sees

And in the evening she makes love

to her own body—washing her hair,

massaging her fingers before

her manicure

And of that man whose voice

is honey hunger I know

nothing; of his flat—

the living room

with its two arm chairs

facing the music:

receiver, tape deck,

compact disk, speakers—

the wall‑to‑wall record collection

(God he pulls them out as if he knew

where each one was blind folded).

All those people in all those songs

all alone in their albums

"I slept with Jagger"

my friend from California writes

after years of dreaming

of sleeping with Jagger

"and all the time

I was thinking

of my dream

of sleeping with Jagger"

Why can't Mick get satis

faction? We were assured

it, or our money

returned.

And in bed the other

looks nothing like

the perfect people

in movies.

We have been promised too much

to take our pleasure

as it comes.

VII

I can't get no

satis

Nothing's

better than more

Less than all

will not satisfy

When what we want

is possession

VIII

In the dark ages before

the Joy of Sex every

touch was its own

Will you teach me love,

She asks.

He turns his back

Thank you.

What do we owe each other in the game of love,

What do we owe ourselves

and what choice do we

have—so many people

in bed with us,

like Russian dolls

one mother inside the other,

or action shots on low speed film

endless shadows seeming

to move as one.

How interchangeable are genitalia

and how specific desire

XII

Obsessions are easy:

loving someone who doesn't

love back. So pure.

Hitting ball after ball

into an empty court

you don't expect to return

Then it comes back

and the game becomes

complex

almost

impossible

moving, changing,

dangerous.

XIII

The closer you get

the less you see

the more you become

The more you become me

the less you are

a lover

Keep your distance

stay near

XIV

What if you fall

into a warm bath

of love soup

and as you lie there, sated,

the soup cools, congeals,

catches you in its clammy

vegetable grasp

The oldest woman I know,

lectures in rest homes on Truth.

At the movies,

the scene turns sexy

she clasps her breast, whispers

over and again, "O, my heart, my

heart"

And Yeats ends hungering

for a girl in his arms

XVI

You awakened this poem

I sought you for that

thought of that shudder

strength you would open

that wonder

you didn't know

then

XVII

A young man in my dream

serves me lentil soup

with a deep smile

I am thrilled to share.

I was hungry and you fed me

pottage, I say, and see

he looks like the boy I loved

many years away,

like the orderly

who cared for my father

with warm gentle hands

those days he was dying.

HOSTAGE CRISIS

"One clear loser in the hostage crisis is Israel, which has gone down nine points in the ratings" NBC, June 30, 1985

"This is the game ..." You draw a diagram.

"First, a river" -- a line across the page.

"On this side lives a husband and wife."

You write (H) and (W) on the bottom half.

"On the other side are her lovers," (L1) and (L2),

who live in view of each other.

(L1) loves (W) madly but (W) is mad for (L2)

who doesn't really care but consents

to sleep with her when she's there.

"There are two ways to cross the river—

a bridge and a boat. The boatman, (B),

for a coin will carry anyone anywhere.

The bridge is free, but from eight at night

until eight A.M. is patrolled by a murderer (M)

who destroys those who try to pass.

"One morning (W) goes to see (L2).

They spend all day in bed.

She is so besotted

she forgets the time, and it is eight.

"When she runs to (B) she sees

she has left her wallet at home

and asks to owe the money.

(B), a businessman,

does not operate on credit.

"Returning to (L2) she asks

for a small loan, but he—reiterating

what he said in the morning—shakes his head.

He has no ties to her, except, as she knows,

an indifferent willingness to acquiesce. Can

she stay the night, she asks. He shakes his head.

"(L1) watches her run down his path, desperate,

hysterical. 'If you love me at all, please

lend me the money for the ride or give me a roof

for the night!' 'Not I—who have watched you two all day—

in love and pain—I will not be further used and wounded.'

"It is bitter cold, and if she sleeps outside

(W) will surely freeze. Perhaps, she thinks, the

murderer will not come out now. She tries

the only way left.

When she gets to this point," You draw an (X)

with your pencil half‑way across the bridge, "She is killed.

"Now," you say in triumph, "List

the letters in order of responsibility."

That was years ago and I, a young American, newly wed,

wrote down (W), (at least she should know

to take her purse) then (H), (who could not keep

his wife at home with love, understanding, reason,

who did not go to look for her).

The lovers were somewhere in the middle

but he who loved should have wanted

to save her, had an obligation to that love.

The one who didn't care should

have cared for self respect.

The boatman—can you blame a capitalist?

At the bottom of the list, I wrote (M).

After all, I had been everyone, felt shame

for all of them, except the man on the bridge.

SUMMER DUST

Sometimes in summer you lose your way,

as if the very smell of dust in the air

blurred the fingerprints of places

and the sites you knew blindfolded

are suddenly so like their opposites

you cannot tell a wedding from a wake.

Painting our room we begin to altercate:

Covering over the dust of summers

with one white wall, one red—

we are baffled by our silence,

suspect hidden furies as if we'd

forgotten we've been best friends,

never known mute passion,

not weathered the chaos

of many summers.

Then we recall—like the couple of Ithaca,

reunited—the secret of the bed, its rootedness

deep in unchanging earth. Suddenly the room

is cool, dark as buried truth, welcome

as an unearthed treasure chest containing

personal, particular jewels.

AUBADE

You send me off every morning shaky‑legged,

in a mood quite unsuitable for the dignified role

I try to play. Sometimes, dreamy, I begin a reply

to a stranger's query as if you and I were still

woven together, and then wake, surprised,

make a sudden sentence twist into the real world.

"Lente, lente," I call to the sun, just like all

lovers in Classics do, but though it doesn't listen,

shines defiantly through the blinds on my face,

I stay with that love almost half the day

till my sea‑legs come and loneliness and the longing

for night.

SUMMER 1990

That summer I wore nail polish that was almost black

and twisted and turned in the puzzles of names

and sought order in woman's life and the idea of life

while the woman I loved most turned away in her dying.