by Paul Muldoon
Above This Line, carrying another relative, Arnold Rothstein, the brain
behind the running, during Prohibition, of grain
alcohol into the States, his shirt the very same Day-Glo green of chlorophyll
on the surface of a cattle bath
or the canal itself, the canal that ordinarily reflects berm bank and towpath
as calm as calm. Jean had been fixing Asher a little gruel
from leftover cereal
and crumbled Zwieback
when Uncle Arnie came floating by the ‘nursery’.
This was the Arnold Rothstein who had himself fixed the 1919 World Series
by bribing eight Chicago White Sox players, Keep Back
Fifty Feet, to throw the game. So awestruck were we by his Day-Glo
shirt we barely noticed how low
in the water his Studebaker lay, the distribution of its cargo of grain alcohol
(filtered through a makeshift charcoal-
packed, double downspout
by an accomplice, Waxey Gordon) somewhat less than even.
‘The peccary’s hind foot,’ the peaked cap would enquire, ‘you call that cloven?’
Asher slept on, his little pout
set off beautifully by the pillow case
into which we might yet bundle the foul madams, the couscous,
the tabouleh carry-out
full of grit
from the Sahara, while Uncle Arnie had taken his lawyer’s advice,
maintaining that he paid none of the eight White Sox
who stood in the witness box
as much as a nickel. Racketeering, maybe. Extortion, maybe. Maybe vice.
But not throwing games. It wasn’t an area in which he had expertise. Not an expert.
Isaac Wolf of New Haven, meanwhile, had unzippered
a freezer bag and made a dent
in the defrosted dough in which we’d meant
to wrap the loin of peccary, Please Use Tongs,
in an Aussie version of the secret
recipe the Duke of Wellington had secured
from the Killadar of Perinda, one which substituted quantongs
for apricots. While Asher slept on, half hid
under the cradle hood,
his great-grandfather Jim Zabin, an ad-man who held, of all things, the Biltrite account,
Please Examine Your Change As Mistakes Cannot,
nodded from his death-bed to the red
stain on the muslin cloth
that covered the peccary in its autoclave
as if that cloth were an obstacle whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, bred
on the Atlantic, might at last
be stayed. ‘By which authority,’ another great-grandfather, Sam Korelitz, would blast
from his hardware store in Lawrence, Mass., ‘did you deny Asher a bris?’
A chainsaw had let rip. Our next-door neighbour, Bruce,
was making quite a hand
of amputating a sycamore limb that had given its all
to the wind and rain. Asher slept on, his shawl
of Carrickmacross lace, his bonnet tied with silk reputed to come from Samarkhand,
while Dorothy stood where the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Millstone
River combined to carry tonne upon tonne
of clay, hay, hair, shoes, spectacles, Please Use The Hammer To Break
The Glass, playing ducks and drakes
with the child-kin shortly to be riven
from her family and I, the so-called Goy from the Moy,
scrubbed the trap made in Marengo, Illinois,
by which we took that white-lipped peccary, as if scrubbing might leave me shriven.
A flicker from behind Asher’s sleeping lids, all covered with little wheals and whelks,
as Jean’s distant cousin, Helene Hanff, began to rub a mix of cumin and baby talc
(cornstarch more than talc) into another loin
of peccary, this being a trick Helene
had picked up from the individual who started a trend
by keeping a rabbit warren-
cum-dovecote in a mews off Charing Cross Road, Hard Hats Must Be Worn,
an individual who picked it up from whichever Waugh deemed a pram in the hallway the end
of art, a Waugh who could no doubt trace it back to Wellington and the Killadar
of Perinda. I looked up in dismay as the helter-skelter
I’d raised in lieu of a lonely tower (part float, part floating derrick)
was nudged by the millrace. The increasingly eccentric
Helene, meanwhile, continued to rub
cornstarch into the remains
of whatever curled in the autoclave. Almost inaudible now, the sycamore moans
as, almost inaudibly, I myself continued to scrub
the latest in traps with a wire brush
from Sam’s hardware store in Lawrence, Mass. ‘You ignore the Midrash
by which authority?’ I could hear small incendiary
devices going off in the midst of the pleasantries
exchanged at this, as every, family gathering, Please Do Not Leave Window Ajar,
where the stricken
face of Uncle Arnie’s friend Fanny Brice peeked from her astrakhan.
‘According to Horace,’ Arnie maintained, ‘every water pitcher started out as a wine jar.
You may take Fanny for a nincompoop,
but I fear she may well be the only one here who’s actually read King Poppy.
I fear, moreover, the way the smoke flings
and flails itself from your barbecue brings back that terrible morning, in Sing Sing,
they fried Charlie Becker.’ Helene looked up from her cumin
splitting while Bruce began to pulverize
a stand of young sassafras
with all the zeal of a chainsaw catechumen
and the groundbreaking Irish navvies continued to keen and kvetch
through the hole cut for a dimmer switch
in a wall of deh-dah stiffened with deh-dah. Next to moor
his little punt at our dock was Joe Hanff, the banker who helped Louis B. Mayer
and Thomas Edison develop a ‘cool’ projection lamp. Where he’d come by the Coke and bucket
of popcorn God only knows.
He handed them to Dorothy for safekeeping while he concentrated on the minutiae
of the peccary trap and the great trebucket
with which we’ve been known to take even larger critters,
setting and upsetting the trebucket as would an obsessive compulsive, Out Of Order,
until he was himself ousted by Sam,
Sam who repeated the opening phrase (‘’asherey ha’ish ’asher’) of the Book of Psalms
as he handed Asher a Berbecker and Rowland
upholstery nail which Asher held as grim as grim
while sleeping on. Tonne upon tonne of clay, hay, hair, shoes and spectacle frames
made it less and less likely that we would land
on our feet on the Griggstown Causeway any time soon, Ramp Divides,
Please Examine Your Change As Mistakes Cannot Be Rectified,
the almost inaudible roar
of the millrace drowning out a great-grandfather’s prayer.
By which authority did we deny Asher a mohel?
By which authority did we deny Asher a rebe?
Asher, meanwhile, slept on, his most crape-creepered of cribs
riding out the torrent, riding out the turmoil
of those thousands of Irish navvies piling clay, hay, hair into their creels
and bearing them at shoulder height, or above, with all the zeal
of creel catechumens. A tattoo on the left forearm
of some child-kin of my children, a very faint tattoo. Once more the storm
was howling and something, deh-dah, deh-dah,
something about that clay and hair going down the
sluice
brought back an afternoon in St Louis.
Something about raking the ashes of the barbecue at the end of the verandah
and turning over the loin and flank
of a young peccary, its loin so lean and lank,
its little rib-cage, Road Narrows.
Something about turning over that runt of the peccary farrow,
with a dink and a dink
and a dinky-dick, brought back that afternoon. Something about Sam lighting a menorah
and reading a commentary on the Torah,
something about Arnie distancing himself from the ‘night-and-fog’ of Murder Inc.
to a disbelieving Duke of Wellington and Killadar of Perinda,
brought back the day
of our own Nacht-und-Nebel Erlass
on which I’d steadied myself under the Gateway Arch and pondered the loss
of our child. It was Arnie who’d been the brain behind running rum
to those thousands of Irish schlemiels
who dug the canal. A flicker from Asher’s lids. The little whelks and wheals.
As if he might be dreaming of a Pina Colostrum
on Boscobel Beach, some young beauty dipping his foot in Johnson’s baby oil.
Fanny peeked from her astrakhan, its poile
the poile of a stillborn lamb. Again a chainsaw letting rip.
Again I scrubbed the very latest in traps
while Helene rubbed cornstarch into whatever was curled, rawer and rawer,
in the autoclave. ‘That peccary with the hind foot,’
the peaked cap would enquire, ‘it’s a bad case of spina bifida?’
I heard a bottom drawer
open somewhere. The red stain on the lint
that covered whatever it was in the autoclave brought back an afternoon in Poland
when the smoke would flail and fling itself, Maximum Headroom,
from a crematorium
at Auschwitz. It was not without some
trepidation, so, that I trained my camcorder
on this group of creel carters
bearing clay, hay, hair (at shoulder height, or above) through the awesome
morning after Hurricane Floyd as yet another 1921 Benz or 1924 Bugatti
came down Canal Road and yet another peaked
cap was enquiring of my child-kin the meaning of ‘Ashkenaz’,
Place Mask Over Mouth and Nose,
my trepidation becoming more and more
pronounced as that smoke would flail and fling itself over Auschwitz.
I looked up from our make-believe version of Boscobel Beach
to a cauterized stump of sassafras or sycamore
as the creel carters piled more and more clay, hay, hair, spectacle frames, Willkommen,
onto the line of carrioles and camions
by the edge of the flooded stream, those creel carters imagining in excited reverie
the arches of the bridge wrought with the motto Albeit Macht Frei,
while I looked up through the swing
and swale of smoke, Please Leave A Message After The Beep,
and watched the kebab-babby we had lost a year or two back put on its best bib
and tucker, watched it put out its little bit of a wing
all tinged with char
as if to set off for the real Boscobel Beach (on which we had met Sandra Hughes and Anton Hajjar),
oblivious to the piles of hair, spectacle frames, bootees and brogans
borne along from wherever. ‘The full name is Auschwitz-Birkenau,’
Sam was explaining to Anton and Sandra,
who had somehow summoned themselves. Asher slept on, of course, despite his thrush,
despite his diaper rash,
the flood water having receded from the point on the driveway at which the pachysandra
had earlier been swamped, the point at which Arnie had fixed some class of a tow rope
to the chassis of the Studebaker. ‘I simply don’t have it in me to bribe
a ballplayer,’ he would main-
tain, steadying himself with a handful of mane
as he hooked the rope to the hames of a draft mule, This Truck
Makes Wide Right Turns. The fact that the slew of interlocutors
in Asher’s glabrous face now included, of all things, the peccary runt, Do Not Litter,
left me no less awestruck
than if the Studebaker were to be suddenly yanked back to the factory in South Bend
from which it had been packed off, Open This End,
than if the soul of one of the dozen stillborn
lambs sewn into Fanny’s astrakhan were to recover radical innocence and learn,
than if scouring the trap by which I had taken that peccary, so lank and lean,
by its dinky hind leg,
Don’t Walk, than if, Don’t Walk, than if, Don’t Walk,
than if scouring might make it clean.
An overwhelming sense of déjà vu. The creel caravan
swaying along the salt route into Timbuktu. Fanny taking up a hand-held microphone
and embarking on ‘Secondhand Rose’. The convoy
of salt merchants setting down their loys
at one and the same moment. Our piliated woodpecker tapping at the bark
of three successive sycamores in the hope of finding one in tune.
The piles of clay, hay, hair, spectacle frames, hand-me-down
bootees and brogans now loaded onto the ark
causing it to lie so much lower in the water that Uncle Arnie gives a heavy hint
to Fanny that she should cut the chorus of ‘Secondhand
Rose’ and jump ship. ‘The whitewall
tyre’, Helene concurs, ‘is the beginning of the pram in the hall.’
Asher sleeps on, attended by two teddy bears,
his soul less likely than ever to recover radical innocence and learn at last
that it is self-delighting. Ada Korelitz, Sam’s widow, is drawing up A-, B-, and C-lists
of the Korelitz forebears
whom she’ll invite to a reception thrown by herself and Arnie, Unapproved Road,
for the 1919 World Series-winning Cincinnati Reds.
‘If there’s no hatred in a mind,’ Isaac Wolf
pounds and expounds, ‘assault and battery of the wind can never tear the deh-dah from the leaf.’
‘As for the killdeer,’ Helene peeks from an astrakhan almost as natty
as Fanny’s, ‘you’re thinking, in all likelihood,
of the killdeer of Perinda.’ The ark now lies so much lower in the water, Stop Ahead,
that Uncle Arnie gives another heavy hint to the Cincinnati
Reds that they should also jump ship, Achtung.
The 1920 Studebaker’s just one step ahead of a Panther tank
nodding approvingly through the ghetto after the Germans have massacred
the Jews of Bialystok. The wind bred on the Atlantic has broken Belmar and Seagirt.
Boundbrook is broken. The roof-levelling wind, profane and irreverent,
the wind which was at the spearhead
of the attack on the ark, almost inaudible. The memory of a three-month growth spurt
no more than a flicker, For Rent,
behind Asher’s sleeping lids. The A-, B-, and C-lists of forebears in his glabrous face.
Hanff. Wolf. Reinhart. Abrams. A Reinhart beginning to fuss
as a peaked cap enquires about the Orthodox
position on the eating of white-lipped peccary. The train stopped in Bialystok’s
running neither to Warsaw nor Leningrad.
Helene uttering a little cuss
as the yellow of that star brings back the out-and-out yellowness of a cylinder of gas
she once saw on Charing Cross Road. Now Isaac Wolf, a Yale grad,
looks on helplessly at the millrace on which sign-post, sign-board, Birdseed, Keep Out,
Bri
dge Freezes Before Road, Do Not Drive In Breakdown Lane, Live Bait,
my lonely helter-skelter, $500 Fine,
the makeshift oven
in which we meant, Keep Clear, All Directions, the Vermont decal
on that Bugatti-load of grain alcohol, Slow,
the out-and-out yellow
of the sign-post that points toward the place where the soul might recover radical
innocence, No Stopping Except For Repairs, the makeshift oven in which we meant to bake
the peccary en croute, Contents Under Pressure, the freezer bag
into which we’ve bundled the carry-out from the Sahara,
the sign-post that points to where the Missouri
had not as yet been swollen, Hump, No Shoulder, No Rail,
are all borne along, Toll Booth,
to where Uncle Arnie’s father, Abraham Rothstein, one of the founders of Beth
Israel (yes, Beth Israel),
joins Fanny Brice in the version of ‘My Man’ she first sang in the Ziegfeld Follies.
A flicker from behind the lids. As if those children-kin might flee
as they fled the Cossacks in the Ukraine,
Please Remember To Take Your Belongings When You Leave The Train,
woken as they now are by a piliated Rowland and Berbecker
tapping into a sycamore. Asher’s face a fox’s mask
nailed to a long-gone door-post by an Irish schlemiel as likely as not to mosk
his brogans for a ladle of rum. ‘What’s with these police captains, like Charlie Becker,’
Arnie puts his arm around Helene, who, being chosen, finds life flat,
Contents May Have Shifted During Flight,
‘who think they’re above the law, who think they’re born without belly buttons?’
The police launch manoeuvring by brings back riot shields and batons,
some child-kin of my children picking at his kohlrabi.
Now Helene leaves off rubbing cornstarch
into the arch
of whatever lies in the autoclave, sets the little beak of her Colibri
wobblingly to a cigarette, Pull To Open,
and reaches into a drawer for the poultry shears. The hacking through a babby bone.
No obstacle but Gregory’s wood
and one bare hill, Slippery When Wet,
bringing back the morning Dr Patel had systematically drawn
the child from Jean’s womb, For Hire,
Uncle Arnie all the while hanging a whitewall tyre
about the draft mule’s neck, the draft mule no less thraward-thrawn
than whichever Waugh deemed the pram in the hallway the end of art.
The peaked cap sweet-talking that young Abrams or Reinhart
