Scribbles

[a sestina]

The horses, quiet, rest in the stable.
My favorite chestnut stamps a hoof
and raises one fine ear at the saddle,
the picks and brushes I lay inside the stall.
I brush his copper hair, slip the bridle
over his head and lead him to the ring.

As sand and gravel blow across the ring,
my horse turns a drooping ear to the stable,
the warm scratching hay, out of the unbridled
chilling wind. He kicks up gravel with his hooves,
throws back his head, defiant, balks, and stalls.
Winter weighs down our backs like an ancient saddle.

The supple leather shines, the dark brown saddle
soft under my hands. Dust motes in the ring
spin in lazy pirouettes. In the stalls
the horses snuffle strands of hay, the stable
filled with rustling mice and muted stomping hooves
and swishing tails, hooks draped with empty bridles.

Once, on the mountain, I gripped my horse’s bridle,
clinging to the reins, but slipped from the saddle,
tumbled down next to his pounding hooves,
my glasses cracked, covered in leaves, head ringing.
He stopped, nudged my arm, his body warm, stable
as knotted oaken walls in old barn stalls.

I imagine, while standing in a stall,
the ancient men who were the first to bridle
wild horses, to round them up in stables
and toss their wiry bodies in crude saddles
on dancing stallions’ backs, force the bridle rings
into their mouths, hammer nails into their hooves.

The frozen pasture ground shakes with pounding hooves,
ten sleek bodies flowing, manes streaming, time stalled
between suspended hoofbeats, the cold ring
of the morning sun, high-pitched whinnies bridled
in the stinging air, their backs bare, no saddles
or binding straps of leather, no stables.

I love the thudding hooves, straining bridles,
galloping from stalls in pitching saddles,
and the dusty ring, for the moment, stable.

Some friends and I climbed up the mountain, through
the rhododendron leaves, along a winding
crowded path choked with stones and languid vines.
We stumbled in the midnight air, beneath
cicada screams ringing through the hemlock trees.
We’d lost the trail, the cell phone signals long
before. We shone their dying lights on rocky
ground, small beacons in the forest night.
The moon was hidden when the path sank down
and plunged through ferns and bracken, twisting in

the dark. And I imagined that we climbed
in a dense primeval wood, even before
the cave men in their mammoth skins had found
the gods of flame and ash, before they painted
on wet cave walls with pigments made of berries,
their fingers arcing over stone. And then
the path rose up, bent sharp and wrapped around
the mountain’s curve, until we stood, our faces damp,
beneath the slowly blinking radio tower lights.

Before the rhododendron leaves,
the rusted brown creek lies

in the cool half-light
below the embankment

which is covered with climbing weeds
and brown pine needles –

and above it, scattered stones,
two bottles, crumpled cigarettes,

and rusted rivets strewn
between rotting railroad ties.

I miss the silhouettes of the Victorian buildings
cast on my boulevard in the morning air,
the footsteps echoing on the metro tile,
the elegant scrawls of Arabic graffiti on the walls.
I miss wishing I could decipher their curves.
I miss the narrow market streets at Denfert-Rochereau,
the fromagère, his round wheels of pale yellow cheese
stacked on spindly wooden tables on the sidewalks
next to the dusty windows of the old accordion shop,
open since 1892.
I miss hurtling underground through the city before dawn,
emerging outside the high arches and iron gates
of the Sorbonne, walking through the empty darkened halls
still smelling of the janitor’s soap and wax.
I miss Hôtel de Ville at night, strains of hot jazz
coursing through the air, the French women graceful
on their stiletto heels, even on the cobblestones.
I miss the boulangerie across the street,
the almond croissants sticky with nutty paste,
the tidy old man in front of me, buying a baguette.
I miss imagining his life, what his wife might look like
(her slight shoulders stooped, with curling white hair, and maybe a cane).
And I miss the cadence of the language, the rolling vowels
cascading off my tongue, the music of Montparnasse,
salade au chèvre chaud, bonne journée, monsieur.
I miss the twisting alleys of St. Germain, where Sartre used to walk with Beauvoir.
I miss walking by their graves in the afternoon,
just down the path from Baudelaire’s tomb.
I miss the crepe stands in St. Michel, the man spreading batter impossibly thin,
flipping the delicate dough, sprinkling on cheese, pepper, salt.
I miss the shaded gravel paths in the Luxembourg Gardens, the green benches,
the children sailing colorful boats across the fountain’s perilous expanse,
engaged in a silent naval battle.
I miss the easy flight to Rome, walking among the Coliseum’s crumbling arches,
eating gelato in the lukewarm November sun.
I miss imagining Hemingway sitting next to me at a café, drinking coffee,
at two in the afternoon.
I miss the plush red seats at the Opéra, knowing my grandfather sat there
seventy years before, listening to Mozart after the war.
I miss searching for the places in his photographs,
the ones he sent home to my grandmother in Pennsylvania,
their backs covered with scribbled comments.
I miss carrying them in my coat pocket,
consulting them like maps.
I miss running through the cemetery to find Oscar Wilde’s grave
with the man I loved, standing on tiptoe to kiss the stone,
and later, in bed, sharing three bottles of my favorite wine,
pale gold Jurançon, made from southern mountain grapes.
I miss the snow falling silent, fast, on the steeples of Notre Dame,
the streetlamps hazy and cold, cast with vague halos
in the last days of December.

I have known the loneliness of endless coffee spoons,
bleakness of white napkins folded in neat squares
placed on chipped saucers, all the sorrow of crushed sugar cubes,
desolation of discarded newspapers, shriveled tea bags, biscuit crumbs,
interminable emptiness of scratched chairs, austere tables,
routine of bitter black coffee, habitude of lukewarm milk
in miniature pitchers, monotony of muzak, muted lights
and dingy bathroom stalls down narrow hallways.
And I have seen the stark February sunlight seeping
through smudged glass windows, alighting on pale thin fingers
curled through curving porcelain handles, illuminating lips
sipping from steaming mugs, and the myriad murmurings
of a thousand secluded conversations.

[a ghazal]

We rode among the ashy aspens last winter,
our horses’ hooves crunched through bracken last winter.

I kept the letter you wrote me, tucked
under a wine bottle, dampened, last winter.

We stumbled into nameless pubs, floors sticking
to our dirty boots in London last winter.

My fingers trembled on the ferry railing,
clutching yours, gloved but frozen, last winter.

Sunlight crept between the blinds of your sister’s
place, waking us at three in Brooklyn last winter.

I watched you fry some eggs, wrist flicking left
and right, tossing in spoons of cumin last winter.

Laughing, drunk, you cut out paper costumes
sitting on my parents’ kitchen floor last winter.

In the freezing rain we walked through gray-brown parks
in Paris, threw coins in dry fountains last winter.

The moonlight played across your face, its curves
glancing through sheer curtains last winter.

I remember you calling my name, Charlee,
in the snow in southern Paris, socks sodden, last winter.

On my uncle’s back porch in July,
small green lizards splay their toes
against white wood, foregoing camouflage.
Heavy air presses the orchid petals
down until they touch the soil.

The palm fronds with their jagged outlines
cut dark against the sky
shake brittle fingers. The humid wind
rises. The hammock rocks, empty, back and forth.
Lightning reaches across

the horizon, stabbing deep into
the sycamores and sassafras,
then retreating back above the treetops.
Inside, my parents watch the evening news.
The fire, it says, is leaping

over six-lane highways, swallowing
houses, eating the trailing leaves
of willow trees and playground swings,
engulfing cars and fishing boats, idling
in deserted driveways, asphalt

bubbling in the heat. Here, the wind chimes
do not sing, but clatter, banging
their thin metal sides together, drowning
out the television’s chatter. And then,
the smell of the swamps, burning.

Someday soon you will forget my name, forget
that time we slept till three, waking only
to the sound of a fly, trapped in your window,
its papery wings beating on the dirty glass,
the buzzing soon drowned out by the neighbor
playing techno music, pulsing hard against
the quaking too-thin plywood walls. You’ll forget
staggering home in early October snow,
at six in the morning, slipping on ice
and rotting yellow leaves, the light pollution
cannot hide the stars tonight, you said, waving
one bony arm across the sky. Someday, soon,
I’ll be that fly, circling around, watching
the stoop in your back grow, your narrow shoulders
shaking in some distant December.
And with my long antennae I will feel
your skin roughening, tawny hair thinning
like the threads of a woolen blanket, washed
one too many times in harsh soap, its fibers
unraveling, bleached like broken seashells lying
half-buried in some silent ocean floor.

One Easter morning my mother
dressed me all in black
before we went to church.
and parked around the back.

Adults clustered, whispering,
glancing at the dead.
I crept slowly between
their legs, ducking my head.

Kneeling by the casket,
I stared at the gray face,
stiff like wax, touched my palm
to its cold cheeks and hands.

I grabbed the rubbery fingers,
reached under thick black
glasses rims, and pulled
the spongy eyelids back.

My fingers poked its lips,
prodded the nose, the ears,
smelled the chrysanthemum stench
hovering around the bier.

Corn stalks rattled in the wind. Rebecca could see the field’s sloping hollows filled with them, stretching far to the horizon in every direction, a monotony unbroken except for a ramshackle barn to the north. The moon was a sliver in the dark sky, a fingernail poised to slice through the stars and leave them drooping towards the earth.
She walked through the furrows, her sneakers covered in dust, kicking through the remains of last year’s harvest. She had no specific destination in mind, but she wanted to wait for the wind to pick up a little more. It wasn’t quite strong enough for kite flying.
Rebecca clutched the thin polyester in her hands, numb and chafed. It was a cheap thing from the dollar store, made of flimsy plastic covered in gaudy designs. But it would do. She needed the string to break so the kite would fly away, out of her control. The kite was the only thing her boyfriend, David, had left at her apartment when he moved out last week. He loved flying kites in the summer. He’d spend hours outside, confidently handling the string in his large fingers, letting it roll around and suddenly jerking it so the kite would do tricks. Circles, loops, twirls, and dives that scared Rebecca when he let it swoop close to her head, wrenching it away at the last moment with a fluid flick of his wrist. She would close her eyes and clench her fists, forgetting to duck, and he’d laugh at her fear. Rebecca gripped the kite a little harder.
The wind became stronger, buffeting her hair around her face. She stopped and unwound the kite string, the fragile white floss pooling into a luminescent pile in her hands. She stood facing the wind, in a runner’s stance she’d seen David adopt so many times, her knees bent slightly, leaning forward onto her toes, digging the tips of her sneakers into the dirt.
With a huge gust of wind she sprinted forward, stumbling through the furrow, crushing the corn stubble under her feet. She threw the kite into the air without looking back to see if it caught. The loose string shot out of her hand and went taut. She stopped and spun around.
The kite darted back and forth, high in the air. It circled around the crescent moon, rolling and weaving. She remembered a day last June when she’d gone to the beach with David, a quiet stretch of coastline south of Cape May. The sky was clear and the sun bright, but she couldn’t feel its warmth. He tried to show her how to fly the kite, starting it out himself and handing the spool to her. She was much less skilled than he was. Time after time the kite would plunge down into the sand, or lose volition and come to rest at her feet. When she finally kept it in the air, it fought her, pinching her skin, cutting into her fingers. The string, barely visible against the sky, almost snapped, but didn’t.
The kite lurched to her left, slicing into her palm. She switched hands. In the moonlight she could see a thin red line appear. The wind grew violent then, tugging and yanking the kite higher and higher in a frantic snaking path. Rebecca’s hair was in her eyes, coated with dust kicked up from the field. She could hardly see the kite anymore, but the taut string pulled on her hands. She wrenched it hard to the right, against the wind, and it snapped. The kite rolled quickly and tumbled toward the ground, but the wind claimed it again. It moved high into the sky, towards the sickle moon, until it became a speck no larger than a star, and finally disappeared.