(for Henry Averell Gerry, 1941-60)
I hardly know how to speak to you now,
you are so young now, closer to my daughter's age
than mine -- but I have been there and seen it, and must
tell you, as the seeing and hearing
spell the world into the deaf-mute's hand.
The tiny dormer windows like the ears of a fox, like the
long row of teats on a pig, still
perk up over the Square, though they're digging up the
street now, as if digging a grave,
the shovels shrieking on stone like your car
sliding along on its roof after the crash.
How I wanted everyone to die I if you had to die,
how sealed into my own world I was,
deaf and blind. What can I tell you now,
now that I know so much and you are a
freshman still, drinking a quart of orange juice and
playing three sets of tennis to cure a hangover, such an
ardent student of the grown-ups! I can tell you
we were right, our bodies were right, life was
pleasurable in every cell.
Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but
better than the bright corners of your eyes, or the
puppy-fat of your thighs, or the slick
chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I
remember your extraordinary act of courage in
loving me, something no one but the
blind and halt had done before. You were
fearless, you could drive after a sleepless night
just like a grown-up, and not be afraid, you could
fall asleep at the wheel easily and
never know it, each blond hair of your head -- and they were
thickly laid -- put out like a filament of light,
twenty years ago. The Charles still
slides by with that ease as your d**h was hard,
wanted all things broken and rigid as the
bricks in the sidewalk or your love for me
stopped cell by cell in your young body,
Ave -- I went ahead and had the children,
the life of ease and faithfulness,
the palm and the breast, every millimeter of delight in the body.
I took the road we stood on at the start together, I
took it all without you as if
in taking it after all I could
most honor you.