A Garment Sewn from Night Itself
In our hotel’s lobby the bridesmaids wear peach
& tuxedoed men stand in matching cummerbunds &
in the freedom of their own laughter. Long flutes of champagne or cigarettes in their hands.
Congratulations Bridgit & Peter Chevalier. She wears white
& tonight, thought they’ve made love often & in a variety of lights,
she’ll feel suddenly shy as she undoes her dress
so she’ll want to turn away, her tan skin, practically aglow
in the dim room. The priest who married them will stare in amazement
at the bleeding statue of St. Pierre before the rectory
till he convinces himself it’s just drink and weariness
because he’s grown tired of miracles.
The one punk rock kid—possibly the groom’s cousin—pulls at his tie
then tries to decipher when he can leave
without reprimand to walk the French Quarter in search of one good band
which he won’t find tonight, & so walking through city lights
he becomes any of us—.
~
There I am, leather jacket with chrome studs glimmering
so it’s as if I wear something sewn from night itself,
the song in my throat bitter & hard to swallow as I walk south on Broadway,
December 29th, night having just trespassed
into the next day; 1985 releasing its last drawn-out sigh, the way one sighs in anger or
despair. How surprised I am as I approach City Hall
to see a dog following me, just a stray
dark as alley dumpsters. When I look again, it’s gone.
~
When I look again it’s not New Orleans, not 1985, but Brooklyn, 1958
& my mother & dad are downtown, waiting to see
Bill Haley and the Comets, waiting to dance together, waiting to sing out lyrics
till their voices are hoarse, waiting to clap, waiting
to turn in each other’s arms like the young lovers they are,
the way they do in the privacy of a friend’s living room when “Rock Around the Clock”
spins on the turntable. Pop & hiss of the needle in the grooves.
They want to spin like that record.
It’s ten o’clock. My father lights another cigarette; the line seems to move a few steps.
He wraps his arm around my mother’s waist
& what amazes me is how good they look
together in their late adolescent longing, how happy they seem,
their mouths open as if laughing,
~
laughing like Mayakovsky & Tatiana in Paris. He wants her
to return to Moscow. He’s in love with her & the revolution.
Both will seem to betray him, but he doesn’t know that then; sitting
in La Coupole or Le Voltaire, he reads, To love means this:
to run into the depths of a yard & till the rock black night
chop wood with a shining axe. She recites his “The Cloud in the Trousers”
from memory; his ox hands wrapped around hers.
~
The Soviets dedicated a museum to Mayakovsky eight years after his death,
but there’s no sacred ground
for suicides, or so taught the nuns at St. Roch’s. How does the priest say this
to Eddy’s parents? & the punk kid
with his spikes of green hair, I see again in the St. Louis Cemetery with three friends;
they’re dressed like shadows; they’re not here
to cause trouble with spray paints and shovels; they’re always stunned
by gravestones of kids their age: 1941–58, 1968–85, 1984–2000; Loving
son of…, Beloved daughter of…, that they suck in their breath
& such breath is a type of prayer
though they’d never admit it. Their classmates think these four weird, macabre,
freaky, the way they walk the mazes of tombs; the way
they buy prayer candles in glass jars, each with a portrait of a particular saint
& light them so the burning wicks dance with shadows
which is visible from the street below—
vicious chords, bass & drums vibrating the window; shrill voice
singing. In their rooms they discuss young women & music
& how listening to music while thinking of those women is for them
the very definition of desire. In school they lazily write names
in notebook margins, the way I once wrote Suzette Collins in fine print
as if it were important, as if the very letters could summon something
extraordinary. Nothing happens though. Nothing ever happens
& the names just get turned over
as the pages get turned & the literature teacher finishes
lecturing about Mayakovsky, by noting as a Soviet poet he gave up
so many things, even god, but not love
which might be, in the end, as close to the kingdom of heaven as any of us gets.
But the kid’s not listening,
he’s sitting there in the classroom, head against the window,
his opaque reflection in the glass.
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