a prose ballad
 

i only held it once but thought about it often as you think about those times when your life had stood both loaded & unloaded

One brother knew of its existence having seen it where it languished in the famed green storage unit from which it had been transferred to the bank-box but we never quite knew when

Information our father had & something he was squeamish about or proud of at the same time the way Protestants are about genitals

We believed it was a Luger—maybe taken from a soldier—in the War our father trained for but didn’t ever get to because he was wounded in the knee—“sustained” is the word they use—sustained a wound—in infantry maneuvers before his men were mostly killed after D-Day—

When his ashes in the desert grave were lying we took the weapon from the bank-box

i put it quickly in my handbag to get it past the teller—the holster was the smoothest leather—brown & heavy —the yawning L-shape of the Luger Google says Georg Luger designed in 1898 —the holster smooth as the jackets of German soldiers in the movies & what had they done to make the cowhide smooth like that & what had they done to the cow

We thought of burying it in the desert but if you Google burying a firearm it changes to a search for buying a firearm

You can also look up how to load a semi-automatic weapon on YouTube where a white man with thick hands & a wedding band shows you how to check for rounds in what order & tells you how to handle it with your dominant hand

We couldn’t take it to the cops even in my handbag though Arizona is open carry & you can take it anywhere in public but the cops can shoot you if you take your gun to their station

One young Tucson cop named Matt agreed to come to us & checked the magazine & said it was unloaded— looked upon us with excruciatingly mild pity — said this relic might be worth some money & stroked it the way some boys do

i couldn’t tell what the brothers were thinking— it felt like a tragedy but reversible—our father’s ghost stood like a tall working summer like Hamlet’s father’s ghost appearing only in the day & good naturedly telling people not do the killing but still trying to control the actions of the play

You can think about ghostly word weapons nonstop Let’s just take a shot at it She was going great guns He loved her but couldn’t quite pull the trigger Better to just bite the bullet Kill an hour or two

& for some reason maybe sorrow for our father’s power/lack of power i felt a twinge when my brother whisked the tiny heavy out of there —my life had stood a secret little hiddenly shameful semi-automatic firearm & When at night Our good day done i guard my Master’s head

My younger brother sold it for $600 at a Tucson gun shop—one of those outfits where the master paces behind the counter offering advice on collecting & is so proud of his stash

It was a Tuesday i think—a Tuesday inside history where America is lost—& what should we do with the cash

At dusk the girl who will become my mom
must trudge through the snow, her legs
cold under skirts, a bandanna tight on her braids.
In the henhouse, a klook pecks her chapped hand
as she pulls a warm egg from under its breast.
This girl will always hate hens, 
and she already knows she won't marry a farmer.
In a dim barn, my father, a boy, forks hay
under the holsteins' steaming noses.
They sway on their hooves and swat dangerous tails,
but he is thinking of snow, how it blows
across the gray pond scribbled with skate tracks,
of the small blaze on its shore, and the boys
in black coats who skate hand-in-hand
round and round, building up speed
until the leader cracks that whip
of mittens and arms, and it jerks around
fast, flinging off the last boy.
He'd be that one—flung like a spark
trailing only his scarf.

The divorced mother and her divorcing 
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law 
and the ex-husband's adopted son. 
The divorcing daughter's child, who is

the step-nephew of the ex-husband's 
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife 
friendly to the first wife, warm

to the divorcing daughter's child's 
great-grandmother, who was herself 
long ago divorced. Everyone 
grown used to the idea of divorce.

Almost everyone has separated 
from the landscape of a childhood. 
Collections of people in cities 
are divorced from clean air and stars.

Toddlers in day care are parted 
from working parents, schoolchildren 
from the assumption of unbloodied 
daylong safety. Old people die apart

from all they've gathered over time, 
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God 
evidently divorced from History;

most are cut off from their own 
histories, each of which waits 
like a child left at day care. 
What if you turned back for a moment

and put your arms around yours? 
Yes, you might be late for work; 
no, your history doesn't smell sweet 
like a toddler's head. But look

at those small round wrists, 
that short-legged, comical walk. 
Caress your history--who else will? 
Promise to come back later.

Pay attention when it asks you
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can
I have more now? Who is that?

    KLYTAIMESTRA:

In prayerful, rational geometry

his arrow arced

but just—a kill—
through heaven’s rolled, impersonal blue,

arriving beyond view
before the thought of it.

The deer kicked without purchase
in the air
so, the further out she ran,
she laid right there

before he raised a pole

a little taller

than a daughter
on a pile of oiled wood
might stand.
            
               •

    KLYTAIMESTRA:

On his cup
the murex —

a spiny conch
as if within the rib complex
of some dissolved

creature
new proprietors
built a calcite beehive tomb

captured in Syrian ivory
and Caucasian tin
that touches between his eyes

each sip axe glint

as naval ships
that lamplight sails
approach the bath

gridded, grouted, fit.

Whose legs submerged waste?

What man’s penis refracted to a boy’s wavers

and in creases of lapped water
winks away?

His own?

Or is he meant to be on board
and then myself in Mycenae

on the outer room’s pisé walls
he storms
décor.

Thirty seconds into the barbecue,
my Cleveland cousins
have everyone speaking
Southern—broadened vowels
and dropped consonants,
whoops and caws.
It's more osmosis than magic,
a sliding thrall back to a time
when working the tire factories
meant entire neighborhoods coming
up from Georgia or Tennessee,
accents helplessly intact—
while their children, inflections flattened
to match the field they thought
they were playing on, knew
without asking when it was safe
to roll out a drawl… just as

it's understood “potluck” means
resurrecting the food
we've abandoned along the way
for the sake of sleeker thighs.
I look over the yard to the porch
with its battalion of aunts,
the wavering ranks of uncles
at the grill; everywhere else
hordes of progeny are swirling
and my cousins yakking on
as if they were waist-deep in quicksand
but like the books recommend aren’t moving
until someone hauls them free—

Who are all these children?
Who had them, and with whom?
Through the general coffee tones
the shamed genetics cut a creamy swath.
Cherokee’s burnt umber transposed
onto generous lips, a glance flares gray
above the crushed nose we label
Anonymous African:  It's all here,
the beautiful geometry of Mendel's peas
and their grim logic—

and though we remain
clearly divided on the merits
of okra, there’s still time
to demolish the cheese grits
and tear into slow-cooked ribs
so tender, we agree they’re worth
the extra pound or two
our menfolk swear will always
bring them home. Pity
the poor soul who lives
a life without butter—
those pinched knees
and tennis shoulders
and hatchety smiles!

They say Satan teased Sarah while
her husband tied their son up on a mountain.
It's an old story: a man tests the limits of religion
while the devil’s on a mission to a woman.

The devil said He's dead! Oh wait! He's not!
Sarah heard a gunshot
and did the only thing she could.
She reached beyond herself and died.

Meanwhile Isaac sees a frenzy
on the face of a patriarch,
and an angel's screaming out a name
and everything's going dark. Afterwards,

they never spoke again. One went
his way and the other went another.
Isaac's mother dead, he followed Hagar
to the desert. Hagar married Abraham

but Isaac stayed away, didn't even send a
text. He pulled the blinds down, tried to rest.
Then his father died, so God blessed Isaac, Isaac
never quite recovered from the loss.

Then Rebecca came along and saw it all.
She'd studied Freud, so knew her boys would
tell stories that their father couldn't bear.
She tore her hair out, then devised a plan.

But even she was foiled; her boys grew up.
Her boys forgot the fights of childhood, spat out
bitter herbs, and limped towards each other
when the Angel settled down at last.

There may not be a God or a Sarah.
There may not be a garden or a man who
ordered soup up to his room.
There may not be a mountain.

But there’s always been a woman with the truth.
But there's always been a brother full of shame.
There’s always been a story, and there’s
always been a devil in the details.

Too many cracks precede 
the spectacular breaking. Each 

story begins in a different dark-
ness. And light: think how it catches

on any surface (pane or 
hinge or keyhole) and 

out of night (out of nothing), 
all at once: a window, 

a door. It’s a metaphor 
(and then it isn’t), darkness. 

When I dream again
it’s the old kitchen—I 

open the oven and sound, 
like ropes of heat, drifts 

out; a shimmering. Familiar 
and confusing. Uncanny,

and then unmistakable: our 
voices, recorded. Playback 

and loop, now—every aching 
word we whispered here.

That Sunday at the zoo I understood the child I
never had would look like this: stiff-fingered
spastic hands, a steady drool, and eyes in cages
with a danger sign. I felt like stone myself
the ancient line curved inward in a sunblind
stare. My eyes were flat. Flat eyes for tanned
young couples with their picture-story kids. Heads

turned our way but you’d learned not to care. You
stood tall as Greek columns, weather-streaked
face bent toward the boy. I wanted to take his hand,
hallucinate a husband. He whimpered at my touch.
You watched me move away and grabbed my other
hand as much in love as pity for our land-locked
town. I heard the visionary rumor of the sea. What

holds the three of us together in my mind is something
no one planned. The chiseled look of mutes.
A window shut to keep out pain. Wooden blank of doors.
That stance the mallet might surprise
if it could strike the words we hoard for fears
galloping at night over moors through convoluted bone.
The strange uncertain rumor of the sea.

In the window of the drawing-room
there is a rush of white as you pass
in which the figure of your husband is,
for a moment, framed. He is watching you.

His father will come, of course,
and, although you had not planned it,
his beard will offset your lace dress,
and always it will seem that you were friends.

All morning, you had prepared the house
and now you have stepped out
to make sure that everything
is in its proper place: the railings whitened,

fresh gravel on the avenue, the glasshouse
crystal when you stand in the courtyard
expecting the carriage to arrive at any moment.
You are pleased with the day, all month it has been warm.

They say it will be one of the hottest summers
the world has ever known.
Today, your son is one year old.
Later, you will try to recall

how he felt in your arms—
the weight of him, the way he turned to you from sleep,
the exact moment when you knew he would cry
and the photograph be lost.

But it is not lost. 
You stand, a well-appointed group
with an air of being pleasantly surprised.
You will come to love this photograph

and will remember how, when he had finished,
you invited the photographer inside
and how, in celebration of the day,
you drank a toast to him, and summer-time.