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My Wife My wife has disappeared along with her clothes. She left behind two nylon stockings, and a hairbrush overlooked behind the bed. I should like to call your attention to those shapely nylons, and to the strong dark hair caught in the bristles of the brush. I drop the nylons into the garbage sack; the brush I'll keep and use. It is only the bed that seems strange and impossible to account for. Reading Something in the Restaurant This morning I remembered the young man with his book, reading at a table by the window last night. Reading amidst the coming and going of dishes and voices. Now and then he looked up and passed his finger across his lips, as if pondering something, or quieting the thoughts inside his mind, the going and coming inside his mind. Then he lowered his head and went back to reading. That memory gets into my head this morning with the memory of the girl who entered the restaurant that time long ago and stood shaking her hair. Then sat down across from me without taking her coat off. I put down whatever book it was I was reading, and she at once started to tell me there was not a snowball's chance in hell this thing was going to fly. She knew it. Then I came around to knowing it. But it was hard. This morning, my sweet, you ask me what's new in the world. But my concentration is shot. At the table next to ours a man laughs and laughs and shakes his head at what another fellow is telling him. But what was that young man reading? Where did that woman go? I've lost my place. Tell me what it is you wanted to know. Distress Sale Early one Sunday morning everything outside - the child's canopy bed and vanity table, the sofa, end tables and lamps, boxes of assorted books and records. We carried out kitchen items, a clock radio, hanging clothes, a big easy chair with them from the beginning and which they called Uncle. Lastly, we brought out the kitchen table itself and they set up around that to do business. The sky promises to hold fair. I'm staying here with them, trying to dry out. I slept on that canopy bed last night. This business is hard on us all. It's Sunday and they hope to catch the trade from the Episcopal church next door. What a situation here! What disgrace! Everyone who sees this collection of junk on the sidewalk is bound to be mortified. The woman, a family member, a loved one, a woman who once wanted to be an actress, she chats with fellow parishioners who smile awkwardly and finger items of clothing before moving on. The man, my friend, sits at the table and tries to look interested in what he's reading - Froissart's Chronicles it is, I can see it from the window. My friend is finished, done for, and he knows it. What's going on here? Can no one help them? Must everyone witness their downfall? This reduces us all. Someone must show up at once to save them, to take everything off their hands right now, every trace of this life before this humiliation goes on any longer. Someone must do something. I reach for my wallet and that is how I understand it: I can't help anyone. Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In You simply go out and shut the door without thinking. And when you look back at what you've done it's too late. If this sounds like the story of a life, okay. It was raining. The neighbours who had a key were away. I tried and tried the lower windows. Stared inside at the sofa, plants, the table and chairs, the stereo set-up. My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me on the glass-topped table, and my heart went out to them. I said, Hello, friends, or something like that. After all, this wasn't so bad. Worse things had happened. This was even a little funny. I found the ladder. Took that and leaned it against the house. Then climbed in the rain to the deck, swung myself over the railing and tried the door. Which was locked, of course. But I looked in just the same at my desk, some papers, and my chair. This was the window on the other side of the desk where I'd raise my eyes and stare out when I sat at that desk. This is not like downstairs, I thought. This is something else. And it was something to look in like that, unseen, from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there. I don't even think I can talk about it. I brought my face close to the glass and imagined myself inside, sitting at the desk. Looking up from my work now and again. Thinking about some other place and some other time. The people I had loved then. I stood there for a minute in the rain. Considering myself to be the luckiest of men. Even though a wave of grief passed through me. Even though I felt violently ashamed of the injury I'd done back then. I bashed that beautiful window. And stepped back in. |  |
