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I left America. I left a black
soda warm
in the black sun. I left undone
a chewed-up, spit-out morning
under Philadelphia.
I crossed a wide sea. I bit fog
and spoke beer there. Forecast called
for brown cider and blue mist and cold meats.
I left before I burnt. I left
singed. I left my pen. I left my
hand, mouth. I left my tongue.
I inhaled dusk-red wine over
the Mediterranean. I fished breakers
for moonlight and rose to the mastlines
tapping troubadours loose from death.
I left miles of roadsigns their
arrows
knowing barely the word; tolerance.
I left the fat opinion of lately.
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See, he turned her into a mirror
again tonight—and then into a pillow
he could wet with his drool, and then
he passed out. Now he could be dead.
Now he could be dreaming about his jean leg
stuck in his bike chain.
Last week she read about an old,
old way
to know what's coming down the road.
But the question must be right.
She has everything she wants—a mustang,
a gold card, a snake on the small of her back.
And he's so cute on Tuesdays when she tutors him
in math, she'd give him her heart for nothing
if he'd ask.
But when she listens for hints from the candles
she's lit, his sleep becomes the wind announcing
the day of her mom's lord.
So she holds her breath, feels
twelve again.
She opens the pack with a fork to let the smokes fall—
and then she reads them. And then she reads them
till her eyes close.
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"… stroking could
be represented as a magnetic means
of easing the evil humours down through the limbs and
out through the extremities."
-
Keith Thomas
Mr. Valentine Greatrakes' Irish
piss
smelled of violets, but it was his stroking
that made him known.
A whisper came one dream to him—
"You're a healer."
And of a sudden the sick lines extended
long past a dozen dusks.
No purging, no puking, no blood-letting.
No charge, either, to chase hot chills
from the believing body (other than expenses).
But he remained a rather ugly
aid of Satan
in the eyes of those divines
upon whose fertile turf Greatrakes,
in a green accent, trod.
Until the magic ceased one season—
unfortunately, before Charles. And noteworthy Greatrakes
sailed home to Ireland, where spirits still wink
from the hedgerow.
