New Poem for Magpie Tales.....

photo by Daniel Murtagh

Pasodoble, 1979

Unlike other moments of transport

I remember that day exactly.

After the drought between us

he had flown in; so much time

had passed, I could not still
my leaping heart.

I had taken over my parents’ house

after my father’s death.

I had inhabited their room

sifting through mother’s jewelry

for some time,

drinking the cold white wine

of summer,

erasing the bad years,

the disarray of cigarette-burned

furniture and floors,

all the chaos two drowning people

leave behind

when death comes,  circumspect

as the mail carrier—

Suddenly Father was gone and Mother

wouldn’t speak;

she was face down on her bed

in the Golden West,

where broken people are deposited

like a check to a teller

to be fed and dressed

and wheeled in to the lounge,

parked under a donated

clock with slow hands.

That day my lover

stood in the doorway,

his brown eyes dancing;

he was my height, not tall,

with a dazzling smile

that made you think

of Caribbean beach fires…

His English was lyrical,

assonant with  Spanish.

I wore a new peach peignoir,

my hair down. 

When he stepped toward me

there was no stopping it—the wet

deep kisses, his hands deftly

sliding the gown from my shoulders

until it pooled on the floor

like a wilted orchid

someone had forgotten

to place in a vase of cut glass

that could refract its pale luster.  

Then, kisses and whisperings,

 the beautiful clench

of mutuality, how we had taught

each other the horizontal

Pasodoble—

I, pulling him into me

with those deepest muscles,

he, surging, his fingers

massaging the hot opalescent

pearl-slick node there, 

with its long sensate petals,

So that I pulsed, and pulled him

down into the hungry fathoms

of my womanhood--

clenched, and burned;

my heart fracturing

at the beauty and glory of it.

We two lay awash and weeping

in that stillness

of absence and summer;

He said he was in love with me,

and I said I wanted to carry

his child.

Years later I sent a letter

in Spanish in care of a church

listing his name among its congregants
telling him I regretted my hurts,
had forgotten nothing between us.

Of course that good fellow the pastor

passed it on to his wife

who sent a curt greeting to me

and said she had given it to him;

that he had read it, lifting one eyebrow,

saying nothing.

How I wanted to open the floodgates,

Somehow revive the past.

Not long after she wrote again,

saying that he had died,

heart giving out at eighty-three,

refusing oxygen.

I wondered what had happened

to me in multiple

collisions with other men

over the years, a hardening

of the heart that had given him

so much lyrical tenderness. 

When the news came

I lay down on my rumpled bed;

in afternoon light; our old rapture

poured over me;

his semblance kissed the small

of my back;

I whispered, “Gracias a la vida

che mi ha dado tanto; *

my grey hair spread around me,

a field without flowers.

*Gracias a la vida che mi ha dado tanto = Thank you life, for giving me so much."