From “Tales of the Prayer Messenger Service”

1.

A Sunday afternoon in July. Dead still.

Heat near a hundred, and the humidity, forget about it.

Weather so bad it was news. Use caution today,

Advised the Globe. I went running anyway.

The streets were empty, as if the city

Had fallen ill or were under a baleful spell,

As I ran down to the river’s edge, to the bridge

Where Harry Houdini had dangled in chains

And escaped, in a miracle of his arrangement.

Today, nothing. Heat haze. Blank white space.

But as I crossed over, a second figure was inked in.

I saw him standing at the rail. He was looking up

2.

At three kites flying

High in the air, tethered to wispy lines.

His arms were raised, his palms lifted—

Two of the lines tied to his wrists,

One to the rail.

How had he broken vacancy’s spell?

He stood there like a conductor,

Summoning brassy, heroic chords.

The kites soared in blank air.

Was he even there?

I saw no one else. No other runners.

No ambling walkers. No scavenging drunks,

No curled-over bikers or whisking skaters

Or lovers lying on the grass, embracing

Openly, as if they wanted a witness

To being so moved. Only three wishes,

Red, yellow, and orange, three sprites

Emblazoned with black tiger’s eyes,

Three young brothers, with ordeals ahead, three

Little sisters tumbling from the wings to keep

Us company the rest of the way. Three hot kisses

To wake us from sleep. Three kites in the wind,

3.

A wind that was up there, somewhere, it had to be.

So I crossed to the other shore with the message

That the still air

still could stir

And the irrepressible void be filled

and my prayer

Be answered:

She would see another season,

and the leaves would be lacquered

yellow and orange and red again

and go sailing through the air.

Night Life in Puerto Rico

The piping chime of Coqui,

The cameo snails smaller than

Fingernails, deep in the island’s

Green profusion, repeating

Their quick light clink like the rim

Of a wine-glass someone is flicking

Over and over, recalls the ring of

Steel rings sliding on chrome, drawing

The curtain closed, where we strained

Under streaming water like figures

By Degas, who loved to make

The simplest act as

Problematic as possible, the angle

As severe and awkward, a foot lifting

While you raised an arm to grip

The chrome gleam and your voice

Chimed in, You’re getting

There!

Two high notes

Of a bright spondee

Descending slowly and giving in

To the blurred vowels of a low

Moan, less “premise of union” than

Bliss stirred by a muse of arousal, all this

Reprised in the struck-china-clink, the

Chime of Coqui, buried deep

In the steamy tangle of

Vines, in Isla Verde’s lush night life.

Stone Girls

One of Rodin’s models—who knows

Who she was or what she thought,

Rolling on the studio floor, spreading

Her thighs so widely,

Becoming Iris, Messenger of the Gods—

Her bronze labia glittering darkly in flight.

And the girl who shocked Eleusis.

Did she suddenly want to see herself

As others could see her? She might have been

Anyone, in the long line of worshippers

Winding beside the sea that night, quick

With glittering spirits,

Until she slid the robe from her shoulders

And went for a swim. She came out grinning.

But the keepers of the Mysteries were not amused.

To them, it was sacrilege. The sentence, stoning.

She was like, sorry, I only wanted to be myself!

They didn’t care. Nor did it matter

That before she dove, her breasts were tipped

With platinum

And her fleeting pose

When she balanced there, like moonstruck marble,

Like a stele by starlight, showed how ethereal

A body could be.

Tosca and Mario

Castel Sant’Angelo

They imagined themselves, safe in the domain

Of art and song, as tempestuous lovers whose tortures

Were gorgeous. Their own invention. But Scarpia,

An artist himself, would weave the threads

Of a silken scarf whose fluency, flowing on air,

Could tighten around an axle and snap a neck.

But no! . . . at the last moment, they will become

Escape-artists—all their years of practice,

Of breathing and scales, of mixing pigment and

Stretching canvas, have prepared them at last

For their masterpiece, “The Mock Execution.”

She enters left, trilling complimenti:

Ah, Mario, How well you act! How dead you seem!

But Scarpia’s trick, the last turn of the screw,

The feint within feints of a true artist, is a powder

Hidden in voluminous sleeves, set

To detonate: the ammunition was live!

Puffs of smoke rise in the bright sky

Like clouds of panicked swallows.

Mario! Her days of coquettish plotting

Are over, she swears. Lo giuro!

Their life in hiding will be authentic

And plain. She wants nothing now

But to see him open his eyes again.

She bends to his fallen form and sings,

Mario! Mario! Get up now. Su!

Their carriage is waiting below.

The Tiber has started to shed its mists

In the sun, although it is still early.

The world is quiet. The only sound

Is her voice, with its desperate beauty.

The Right Words for the Claims Adjuster

The neighbors hated my Sergeant Pepper beard

And rag-tag Army-Navy regalia, but my unruly lawn

Was the worst part. So I saw what had to be done.

I got a power mower and pushed it back and forth

Through thick grass that clotted the whirling blade

Until at last a pattern emerged, Florentine,

In beveled bands of lighter and darker green.

This was their cue. One by one my new supporters

Came out. Ralph, with advice on early planting,

Onions, mashing the two soft syllables into one,

And John, can I lop those drooping branches off—

He had the right tool, a saw hooked to a long pole—

And Chet, who lit a cigarette and squinted

At a patch of moss. Know what I’d do about that?

I’d lime it. And told me a story. Seems one night

A careening car had totaled his favorite shrub.

Next day there were slashes of raw soil, shaped

Like scimitars, curving down to the ruined syringa.

When the claims adjuster came, Mrs. Chet did the talking.

Out in the field it may be common, but on our lawn,

It is ornamental. As if she’d been waiting to use that word,

Like Kafka, who hung a sign over his desk saying WAIT,

Like Grant in Galena, waiting to be called—Grant,

Who would know what Lincoln meant when he said,

I need a general who can face the numbers. Who cut

Such a fine figure beside the tent, with his folded gloves

And his ceremonial sword. So composed and reserved,

Like a sultan, who only needs to speak one word,

A few hard-bitten consonants, and someone leaves

To do whatever is needed, preserving the peace

Of long, tranquil afternoons, where fronds bow

In the slightest breeze, and fountains plink the pools.

Sunlight slides through lattice-work, and shadows fall

On gleaming tiles, adorned with scrolling calligraphy.

The looping scripts repeat their hymns of praise.