Song of a Reformed Headhunter

I wrote my poem "Woodwork" in response to a poem by the Irish poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. Section 18 of her long poem "The Rose-Geranium" begins: I run my hand along the clean wood And at once I am stroking the heads Of everyone in the room. The wood image immediately recalled, for me, the sessions of woodworking in secondary school. I was hopeless at turning a plank of wood into a door wedge or a pencil holder, but I did love the smell and touch of the material, which Ni Chuilleanáin's lines brought back so powerfully for me. The feel of the clean wood sends her out into the streets, on a failed quest. I look, and fail, in the street Searching for a man with hair like yours. The eroticism of touch resonated strongly with me, and so I wrote a poem about handling a piece of wood and being unable to handle the boy across the worktable, who was working with such alluring mastery on his project. Then I read A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now ,...

Scythe , a journal edited by Chenelle and Joe Milford, grows out of their poetry radio show. Joe interviewed me way back in 2009, when my book Equal to the Earth was published. Chenelle wrote me a few months ago for some poems. Three of them, after Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, appear in the fall issue . The Milfords' dedication to poetry is heartening.

The Dying and the Living Water came swimming inward as the tide turned. They saw far off a stranded dog rushing madly around A dry patch of sand that was getting smaller and smaller. --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “Tower of Storms, Island of Tides” Your dog is dying, and he is the first creature you observe, at firsthand, decline from sure health to the helplessness you nursed, his heart swelling and choking off his wind, decline so every symptom seems the worst, but is, like a cloud darkening, a sign. Your dog is dying, and you seem to die, the hard part called confidence, to my eye. You see your ex-wife holding up the life of her collapsing mother, see from far devoted love but not the deadly strife, but you know for a fact the murder there. My ex’s father does not know his wife but claims all the familiar stranger’s care. The dying and the sick exact sympathy. They are the cloud you see and do not see. My father, told of the death in his lungs, the swollen walls...

In His Other House In this house there is no need to wait for the verdict of history And each page lies open to the version of every other. --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “In Her Other House” In my other house too books line the floor to ceiling shelves, not only books on investment, catalogues, self help books, but also poetry, Edwin Thumboo, Lee Tzu Peng, Alfian Sa’at, and the one who moved away and who wrote Days of No Name . My father comes home from the power station and when rested (and this is how I know this is not real) he reads to us again, for the seventh time, Philip Jeyaretnam’s Abraham’s Promise in a sweet low voice, unbroken by a frightened young supervisor. When he closes the book, my dead grandfather stirs from a dream and says a word or two, that really says he has been listening. And my beloved, knowing his cue, jumps up from the couch to clear the dishes, for, as he says, dishes don’t wash themselves. Softly brightened by a feeling I do not hurry to ...

Weight Lifting Man As the heat from the fire drew up the chimney, The flame pressing, brushing out the last thread, Constantly revising itself upwards to a pure line. --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “Woman Shoeing a Horse” In the city, in a room lit bright as a mortuary, I have seen a pure line held quivering between a man steeped in sweat and a weight, dumb, repetitive, heroic, and for that I ache. *

Many things streaming in my head when I wrote this poem this morning. A lovely wedding yesterday. The National Equality March today. Immigration, always. What is real. What is true. What is beautiful. Ideas of the Real On Palm Sunday Sister Custor Exposed her major relic, the longest Known piece of the Brazen Serpent. --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “The Real Thing” Two days before Columbus, you find a better way to prove a continent real: you are wedding you, bringing strangers (family are strangers to a love) together here to witness a special desire. In National Newark Building, the murals dream of freight trains pulling in, busy docks, canals, the blending of peoples, the mart of all trades— O, a city falters when its dreaming falters. You build a small belief on the mezzanine. Pivoting in the scattered ring of rose petals, our seats arranged round like four low walls as if to square the circle, you invoke Neruda singing of disused military roads, his words a bl...

St. Thomas Preaching in Hell’s Kitchen Now at the end of her life she is all hair— A cataract flowing and freezing—and a voice --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “St. Mary Magdalene Preaching at Marseilles” Near the end of his life, his face is all eyes and his hands two blisters. Still he demands to see in order to believe, to hold a joint as it burns. In the restaurants the servers think they are actors in disguise. They practice their voice while reciting the specials in French. They reappear at the right moment. The tourists hope they are enjoying themselves. They watch a play, they stroll the park, they visit the museum in the movie they play every Thanksgiving. The bars are crowded with loneliness, that buzz between drink and drunk. Men grow old here, without giving each other more than a glance. Thomas knows them all, the servers and the lovers. They hurry past him preaching on the street or laugh at his owlish face. When they curse him, he knows, they will...

The Hospital Lift The Virgin was spiralling to heaven, Hauled up in stages. Past mist and shining --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “Fireman’s Lift” My mother is the aged Queen of the spin of washing machines. Her body sags now but when she was young eyed and toned she washed St. Andrew’s Children’s Hospital, whose best feature was its ancient lift. I would close the iron grille with a clang, thump the big black top button, grow up watching the floors drop to my feet, the bowl that glowed in underwater green the babies crying, startled by the light in blue gowns the kids chasing the clown the professional look of clean white smocks before arriving on the roof, the air smelling of detergent, wind and sun, the sheets flapping like giant birds. When my mother turned to greet me with a tight smile (now loosening indefinitely), how was I to guess the magic act of hauling up an ancient lift by spinning modern washing machines? *

Woodwork I look, and fail, in the street Searching for a man with hair like yours. --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “I run my hand along the clean wood” The wood to be turned into a door wedge shows a pale grain and smells of incense. Soft, like my palm, it keeps the teeth marks of a vice closed too tight. It shrinks from the metal lip of the plane. The boy across the worktable marks his piece with a soft pencil. His hands, a shade darker than the wood, handle his work as if it is a spinning top or a Frisbee. The workshop hums and curves to the same drawing of a door wedge, laminated edges fraying from past fingers. The best mark goes to the boy who makes the most exact copy. Next month we work on metal. *

The Double Boy The clock chatters; with no beating heart Lung or breast how can she tell the time? --Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “The Absent Girl” The double boy takes off his clothes. He sees his body in the nude face of the glass whose back is covered. He points the mirror, like a telescope, and the glittery dress waves its short inverted sleeves. No one is in the room. The boy in the glass could get into the dress in the glass and into the inverted bed. The bed is rocking gently like a ship. His body waves. His bones wave like a flag. *