Ghost Girl

by Amy Gerstler

  Here he sits reading aloud from volume one

  of The History of the Pitiable in a voice full of snuffles

  and honks, mumbling on till cockcrow. Now he sobs,

  now he sings. Now he gives voice to lingering

  doubts about the longevity of the soul.

  Now he discovers a pile of collapsed stone walls

  incised with faint inscriptions he can read only by feel.

  Light radiates from his fingertips (the size

  of manhole covers) as he deciphers fragments

  of advice and farewell notes from us, his ancestors,

  a race of tiny insignificant beings, authors of our own

  extinction. We observe his sufferings ever more

  tenderly as we peer down at our lumbering cousin

  over heaven’s jagged and forbidding rim.

  DOMESTIC

  Where’s the wisdom in erasing a loved one’s mess,

  so akin to his signature? Your honor, I only meant

  to strew the immaculate in his wake. To wipe the path

  ahead and behind reasonably clean. Futile, yes,

  but weren’t such gestures essential to love’s discipline

  once upon a time? Daily, I harvested dropped fruit peels

  and socks. I chased him through life with dustpan

  and broom, smoothed his body dents from the bed,

  soothed the mud tramped floors. Did I sin in this?

  Better to leave the habitat sweetly reeking of him

  than to spend years scrubbing up evidence of his existence.

  Archaeologists centuries hence may marvel at such relics:

  his mustard stained napkins, toothpicks chewed

  to splinters. Never let it be said that in my zeal

  to clean I robbed the future’s museums. Who

  am I to call what flies to either side of the trail

  he blazes—half-read magazines, cups of scummed

  over coffee and mashed out cigarettes—dirt?

  SWANS

  A family of swans glides silently by,

  their bills the reddish orange of flames

  or some unwanted declaration.

  Since I can’t have you, I proposition

  sentient beings outside my species.

  Even the trees refuse me.

  Why won’t my mind be quiet?

  Last night I dreamed you told me no again.

  You scrawled FORGET IT on the clouded

  mirror as I took a long, hot shower.

  You were naked too, except for a thick pink

  towel wrapped around your waist. Politely

  you handed me a blue towel. Billowing steam

  hid me like a chorus of Jewish aunts

  at a ritual bath back in the old country.

  Why do these longings persist? The two

  adult swans steer closer to shore.

  They nip at clumps of beard-like algae.

  Their cygnets, the color of ash,

  are quite shy. You can tell the male

  by his flapping and honking. I sit on this dock

  half the day, as though hatching an egg,

  reading Daniel Defoe’s history of pirates,

  in which buccaneers brag and proselytize:

  crying up a Pyrate’s life to be the only one

  for any man of spirit. About two in the afternoon

  a guy without pistols or cutlass comes

  to collect his bucket of bloody

  fish caught the day before, stashed

  in his moored boat. He tells me it’s OK

  if I sit there. Smiling, annoyed, I think,

  what’s it to you, buddy? Later I learn it’s his dock,

  his field of tall grass and Queen Anne’s lace

  I trudged through to get here,

  so I’ve been tresspassing all day.

  The male swan berates me: Little fool,

  don’t be so free with your love. I dangle my legs

  over the oily bay. Globular rainbows

  separate and unite on the surface

  of the water. These trees can neither run

  nor trudge, yet they flower and flower.

  DENIAL

  Don’t think I spend my nights brooding

  about your

  freckled lips, smeared with fig jam.

  Or your velvety

  ear lobes. The way they taste of sea salt

  and celery

  never occupies my mind for hours at a time.

  I’ve more chaste

  things to meditate on, like the raft my son is roping

  together down

  by the lake, and whether it’s even remotely seaworthy.

  I am not

  thinking about the biblical gardens of your armpits,

  your slighty lemony

  smell, the three white hairs sprouting from your right

  eyebrow,

  the coming storm in all its voluptuous glory.

  I am merely

  sitting on this itchy patch of beach grass, watching geese

  land on sandbars,

  recalling last night’s dream, in which P.F. demanded

  I write

  a poem entitled “The History of English Lettuces.”

  This isn’t it.

  WHAT THE BODY WANTS

  Not temperance or etiquette, but heavy petting.

  Not modesty, but the sweaty chase me games

  of childhood. Not renunciation, but chocolate

  custard, served in mother’s chipped pink ceramic

  custard cups. Not bones, but the marinated all day

  meat. Not pious missionary safaris, embarked on

  limping and soul-injured in monsoon season.

  No cautionary fore-glimpse of its burial place,

  the trees waiting, patient and starved for nitrogen

  in their secluded grove. The body, undaunted

  scholar of its own encyclopedia of greeds,

  craves a front row seat for the new satyr play,

  lusts after the happy sacraments of black

  cashmere sweaters midwinter, big dinners

  with plenty of bread to sop up the gravy,

  and long nights of athletic sex that leave it giddy

  and winded, hallucinating dime-sized fireworks,

  gasping that it can’t continue, it’ll expire

  on the spot. Then a blessed second wind blows

  in out of nowhere, followed by more naked

  horseplay, racing thoughts, confessions whispered

  into the darkened grate of another body’s hazy face.

  Soon absolution ensues, and a little late stargazing,

  as the body teeters on the cusp of sleep. Next morning,

  the whining, ungrateful mind arises unconsoled,

  and the body must begin its cajoling all over again.

  BAR AUBADE

  Tell me, tranquil objects surrounding

  this pair as they sleep: you sheets, clock,

  clothes lying in heaps on the unswept floor—

  for example his shirt and her crumpled

  stockings, co-mingling—surely it can’t

  yet be brisk, bittersweet day(?) Aren’t light

  and parting still far off, hiding behind

  that crazy-assed purple horizon who

  grumbles under his breath? Let’s hope

  that burgeoning, unearthly glow

  is the blinking neon of a distant speakeasy,

  wherein those destined to save themselves

  by timely flight abroad meet to bid

  each other adieu on the coast of a beloved

  but deeply insecure homeland. The ashtrays

  in this bar are always full. Our glasses are nearly

  dry. A final fiery sip. OK. Time to go. Dawn’s

  the color of honey daubed on skin to promote

  wound healing, or drizzled across the belly

  in foreplay. Home is where you are fed

  and ado
red. Hand me my crutches, dear.

  We may yet escape the impending. I change

  the bedding around here, so I know a thing

  or two about who’s in league with who,

  and whose frail hopes are pinned upon whom.

  ODE TO TOAST

  “When you were alive ’Twas your favorite food. . . .”

  Lucky, lucky tongue, rejoice in toast’s crisper,

  toughened up crumb. The once limp slice stands up

  to honey, mustard, blackberry jam, or pastrami piled

  high, its folds like those of a Roman’s toga. Amber

  grain endured a second trial by fire. Toast is bread

  twice baked, crustily double blessed, like the warrior

  who twice escaped death at his enemies’ hands

  and survived into peace-time, not just unharmed

  but husky, hardy and tanned by the sun, his grateful

  faith intact. A blacksmith by trade he takes grave joy

  in forging a plowshare from his sword. Toast’s tooth-

  some crunch echoes the sandpaper scrape

  of a kiss from he of the unshaven cheek,

  a kiss that turns my knees to melted butter.

  ODE TO SEMEN

  Whiteish brine, spooners’ gruel,

  mortality’s nectar, potent drool,

  foam on oceans

  where our ancestors first

  bubbled up (that vast soup

  we’ll one day

  be stirred back into). . .

  O gluey sequel

  to kisses and licks,

  the loins’ shy outcry,

  blurt of melted pearl

  leaked into hungry mouths

  or between splayed legs

  in a dim, curtained room,

  while far off, down the hall,

  in the kitchen’s overlit,

  crumb-littered domain,

  ham is sliced,

  potatoes are peeled,

  and, emitting pungent milk,

  minced onions

  begin to sizzle . . .

  (POEM THAT SPILLS OFF THE PAGE)

  A List of Answers to the Question: “And what, pray tell, were you wearing?”

  Satyr horns.

  Sackcloth and ashes.

  My heart on my sleeve.

  My spleen on my garter.

  A crown of pink cactus flowers.

  A grin the first rain washed away.

  A cape made of a huge potato pancake.

  His nectarine pit collection, strung as a necklace.

  A clamshell bodice and a cockatoo on my shoulder.

  Skirts stained by hors d’oeuvres and insincere platitudes.

  A surly Marxist’s tight-lipped rendition of lamentable events.

  This hand-lettered sandwich sign which reads: pardon my striving.

  A barrel of laughs, held up by suspenders, meant to conceal a leaky libido.

  Layers of glacial lace and the last gasp of daylight. Jaguar pelts. Cosmic abundance.

  My hair done up in the Spanish manner. A lilypad hat. The feel of your long absent hand on my arm.

  A BLESSING AND A CURSE

  (Spoken by a twelve-year-old girl wearing a paper crown. She addresses her younger brother.)

  So far in this life, you’ve done me no harm. But in past incarnations your crimes against me were numerous and abominable. As punishment, you must spend a goodly portion of this existence making it up to me, or be reincarnated as a Beaded Gecko in the Gobi Desert next time around. I expect the first in a series of well-thought-out presents to begin arriving the day after tomorrow. I’ll tell you when you can stop. And they better be nicely wrapped, too. You know what colors I like. Woe unto you if your offerings do not delight me to the wellsprings of my being. We shall both be exhausted before your forced worship of me runs its course. No one understands my rituals. You will study them and explain my winter injuries to our childlike followers, whose guileless, manic antics I alone was born to atone for. You’ll trace ancient diagrams in the sand so they’ll understand why my breath smells mostly like ammonia, why my halo of curls undulates like balletic water-worms at play, and why my future melon-like (but at this point in time still theoretical) breasts may be drunk from only on feast days or after a total eclipse. Don’t make faces at me! Hold perfectly still while I anoint your sweaty, freckled forehead with this stripe of sacred paste, made from Brylcreem, gutter mud and catbox gravel. Kneel down right now and let me smear it on, before mother calls us in to wash our hands for lunch.

  A WIDOW

  Two Weeks Have Gone By, And

  the dogs no longer sprawl on the family room sofa, staring at the hall door in patient expectation he’ll stroll out of his bedroom and growl, You two critters, get down off the couch! She donates his clothes to charity, “so someone can get good use out of them.” Sunday, she makes jam, so the flats of strawberries from Farmer’s Market don’t go to waste. Floral tributes wilt in every room, mostly stargazer lilies. She cancels his credit cards, driver’s license, car insurance, membership in the Discount Buyers Club of America and The Mystery Book Guild. Identity theft is a problem these days and the dead are prime targets. Be sure to inform all creditors, banks, anyone with whom the deceased did business. His colleagues drop by, bearing more lilies and Danish lace cookies. Some weep in disbelief, and she comforts them.

  Free Ice Cream

  Sixteen phone calls later there are still so many people to break the news to. His barber, who cries; their accountant, so sick his voice has thinned to a gassy rasp. No quick, merciful end for that man. He lingers another month. Then there’s the ice cream store girl who remembered the husband always wanted rocky road, and scooped it without being asked. She gives the widow and her daughter free ice cream.

  Under The Rug

  Oh, what a treasure hunt! Where did he hide the deed to the house, his will, the health insurance forms, the plastic trash bags—the big kind that tie at the neck—the hedge clippers, the opera tickets? His blood is expunged from the hall rug where he fell, hitting his head after his heart seized. Now there’s not even a bleached spot. When the widow told the cleaning lady that he’d passed away, she insisted on staying to do her day’s work. She put in five hours vacuuming and crying, dusting and sniffling, crying and ironing.

  Nightlife

  In dreams she relives his sudden, unexpected death at a more graceful pace. He grows sick and dies gradually, reasonably in these dreams, propped on white pillows. She feeds him. They talk and talk. Nothing’s abrupt. All proceeds as languidly as water ballet. Everyone behaves just beautifully. This second, slower take on his death is so soothing, like a play where actors take time with their lines, making the most of their moment to step forward and address the audience. Nothing in these dreams is drawn from real life. In them, she never comes home after dropping the dogs off to be groomed to find him napping at noon (unusual, but not unheard of). There’s no jolt when she settles a quilt over him and kisses his forehead, no bolt of fear as what touches her lips, once his brow, is now a cold vacant dome.

  Flocks of Birds

  A troop of quail begins to visit her. A male and his harem. She rigs a birdbath for them in the backyard, hangs feeders and fills them with peanuts and seed, watches birds and squirrels through the dining room picture windows as she drinks coffee. She cuts her long hair. Her first shearing in forty years. She looks younger, friends tell her. The husky whines to be let out to chase quail. I have a lot to live for she informs her daughters, a statement she find strangely true.

  Late Night Radio

  Since his death she sleeps with his old radio pressed against her ear—the transistor he’d listen to with an earplug while patrolling the quad at lunch, checking boys’ restrooms for smokers. All through the appalling, shapeless night, emphatic voices prattle and buzz. They argue politics, monogamy; urge her to texture-coat her home or consider laser eye surgery; discuss fundamentalism, and whether the Washington area sniper is a terrorist or simply
another deranged citizen. Blessed be the radio with its chorus of vigilant souls who refuse to let silence engulf our widow, and so, in their own way, practice a doctrine of constant love. Cajoled all night, she’s never truly alone.

  Ribs

  She returns to food only slowly. At first she gags down a few ounces of soup at her daughter’s insistence. As the days pass, her enjoyment in eating gradually reawakens, like sensation prickling back into a sleeping limb. Tonight our widow is having pork ribs, slathered in hot sauce made from chiles, catsup, cloves and honey. As she eats, the dogs under the table nuzzle her legs. The word “marrow” is stuck in her head. It keeps repeating like the chorus of a song, in time to her chewing. You were my plasma, sugarpie, my branching capillaries. Baby, sweet baby, you were my marrow.

  MIRIAM

  “And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.”—Exodus 2:4

  She watches her brother float slowly downriver. The water glows in spots like polished copper. Moses sleeps in a reed basket, sealed with duck grease and pitch. King of his own woven island, he bobs gently away. She can’t see his soft mussed hair that never quite dries, his raw pink upper lip. She absolutely refuses to bid him goodbye. Sunrise makes her scalp prickle. Dawn’s her favorite time of day. The sky’s turning lavender five degrees at a time. This baby loves daybreak, too. She reads him so easily. His spirit, its weird infant flickerings, makes perfect sense to her. She writes the baby’s name on the river’s surface, breaking its skin with practiced finger flicks. Should she whisk her brother off to a cave and raise him there? How dangerous can a baby be? Sickly at first, his raspy cough made it tricky to keep him hidden. He, too, loves donkey bells, the burbling of doves. His face crumples with joy when he catches a glimpse of her. No one else has ever seemed that happy to see her. The riverbank’s oozy. Muck fills her sandals. Her shift’s clingy and smudged. Thick foam, like cream on beer, collects around clumped cattails. When she left on her mission this morning, in utter darkness, her father hid his head and wouldn’t speak. Adults are such idiots. No sane person sets an infant adrift. She winds her braids so tightly around one hand her fingers buzz. Bugs skim the river. Frogs burp. She yanks off her filthy dress and drapes it over a patch of reeds. She’ll wade in and save him. When he’s older, she’ll teach him to repeat: I have the prettiest sister in this village. Hip deep in cloudy water she sees a small crowd approaching. Dressed in white, they’re bearing someone on a curtained litter, waving green palm fans. So this is the future. You relinquish what you love, offer it up, an unwilling gift. Her thoughts sputter. Separate. Unite. Separate. Unite. Death is an interim state. A dead bough is a snake if that’s what god wants. She feels light-headed and queasy. Who is that baby in the water I thought was my brother? A voice in and outside her, like jackals laughing, or the horrible sucking of famished water answers. He is rash and tongueless. He is dust. He is nothing. He is entry and exit, a radiant red sky, a great vacancy, beloved and indestructible.