The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

by Jesse Ball

no longer can the skin feat be performed in this town.

  They do not see that they are dancing wildly

  in their best clothes.

  And from atop a statue, a crow observes

  and mutters; his beak is amidst feathers of no color.

  For there are no colors inside a fire.

  35

  The elegance of older days is a matter of precedence.

  Majesty has nothing to do with being clean!

  I could sew a pretty countess into her dress

  and myself into my skin

  and we could run laughing, pulling

  the one upon the other—

  and what would it mean?

  I should think a manual would be more forthcoming.

  The skin feat is all intuition

  like the moment of an arrow striking.

  No one is shooting arrows—

  they are just slamming violently out of the air,

  driving into every surface — there’s no shelter.

  Barbed arrows — they can’t be pulled out.

  36

  Life is just that—

  emerging into dying. But you knew that—

  were your parents not pioneers,

  not the children of pioneers, no?

  Build a house where there’s no one to help you;

  bury children;

  or are you confused about the cost?

  The skin feat comes only at great cost.

  Its veins and nerves are bruises and broken bones

  its melody the holes where teeth were.

  37

  Does it sound like a gray affair?

  No — it is all wisps of light.

  25,000 mornings, and every one leading promptly into afternoon.

  This is the skin feat — to hold yourself so gently

  that you do not go to meet a friend you love

  because you are remembering

  the edge of something, and feel presently it will come.

  Each time it happens, the world is wrought

  where you are—

  bells break in cold air.

  Is it so small that you are disappointed?

  I think you are not reading

  through a noose.

  No one is any better at saying what a feast is.

  It’s just the days you haven’t eaten

  hitting together like the bones of a necklace.

  38

  Are there really nations? Are there wars?

  I had supposed we were all just pinned beneath rocks

  on a long sandy coast

  with birds to peck out our eyes.

  We want so much to rise in the tumult

  and feel ourselves grand and helping those who are

  hurt—

  but we are between the walls of the house

  where the world is made—

  and can do nothing for the others.

  Are you one of those who feels north is north?

  Or do you suppose we orbit nothing in a void?

  Is meaning itself a cancer — a lesion — a symptom?

  Or can we learn to speak in symbols and disguising

  our hopefulness

  perish truly at the moment of death?

  It is a chair that you have often passed

  but never think to sit in,

  this well-upholstered yellow chair

  with thin legs.

  It is crouching in its own space,

  and counting quietly.

  39

  The saints who say that birds are angels—

  they are so confused!

  They themselves ate bread so long,

  they have been good to others so long—

  well,

  we can plainly see the birds eat the bodies

  of other birds.

  40

  Why, I am running so fast in this narrow lane

  that I cannot stop.

  I cannot even look back — not with my face.

  And so, yet again you say, when asked,

  I am setting out this morning for a funeral, my own

  at a place not of my choosing.

  With a telescope, you see from far away

  what you will look like after a while,

  but this

  you cannot see:

  for the plot is small, and it rains so soon after.

  41

  Yes, the skin feat! And my kissing of your hands!

  I run out of the house to where you are standing with

  your bags.

  I embrace you, I raise you up — I am strong

  and you are very little.

  You are coming to live with me. Everyone you know

  has vanished in a plague.

  UP and DOWN the halls of the house we go merrily.

  I have made you a room, and set you a bed.

  I have given you paper for letters — though there’s no

  one to write to.

  We will eat together and sit with wild thoughts mulling.

  My hair is growing longer and so is yours—

  my wife will shear it off, will hold us like sheep

  and shear us.

  I want to show you the town where I play my tricks—

  for they are quiet tricks,

  yes, quiet tricks

  and no one knows I play them.

  42

  What ends this story of the skin feat? I find

  I have explained it badly.

  I worry that you will go back along this bridge of hands

  and not carry my book with you.

  The sun is climbing in the sky—

  and out past the fence you can see figures

  walking the road’s edge.

  I am looking now at the map of your life,

  at all the rooms, the roads, the lawns and hallways.

  You have dreamed of it, and you will dream of it again.

  A light breeze blowing, a season ending—

  you find a small house

  and the windows lit.

  Who is there, waiting, pacing the room?

  Is it one, or many — are they saying your name again and

  again?

  What is violent? What is beautiful?

  What aches, what falls?

  You are running and you will be caught.

  Your very legs will fall apart, and you will still live.

  And when you die others will forget you. So soon they

  will scour your name.

  I tell you this because of my heart

  that wakes me and wakes me

  and wakes me with its beating.

  About the Author

  Jesse Ball is the author of The Curfew (Vintage 2011), Samedi the Deafness (Vintage 2007), The Way Through Doors (Vintage 2009), Vera & Linus (Nyhil 2006), Og svo kom nóttin (Nyhil 2006), and March Book (Grove 2004). His novella, The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr, won the Plimpton Prize in 2008. His work has been translated into many languages and work of his was included in Best American Poetry 2006. He is currently an assistant professor at the Art Institute of Chicago.