by Ruth Rouff
white belly
tissue soft but
icy, its black
eyes shifting
like ball
turrets, the
corners of
its untroubled
mouth curved
upward ever
so slightly—
a Mona
Lisa
smile.
Visionary
My best friend Donna
really flipped out
when served a piece
of cake with
mold in it.
This unsavory
discovery set off
a chain reaction
of voices in
her head. Telling
her she was
no good,
echoing over
and over like
banging,
clanging on
garbage can
lids.
It embarrassed me
sometimes
to have Pat
for a friend.
Those times when
her eyes, ominously
crossed at
birth, would light
up with an
unearthly
gleam.
But, all in
all, we were
co-conspirators,
like the ancient
Romans, giddily
plotting the
overthrow of
an Emperor
we would
never
see.
Ball Game
On the round field of
Noyes Circle I hit a
pop-up which both
the pitcher and the
first basewoman
tried to catch. They
collided, smacking
together like the
closing of a book,
or the opening of
one, rather.
While the pitcher lay
prone, her beautiful
girlfriend rushed
over to comfort
her. Kneeling down
and smiling like
a Pieta, Sarah
rubbed Ellen’s
exposed belly.
“Ahhh,” we all
thought. “That
explains that.” The
touch, so erotic
hypnotic that we
watched, circling.
Meanwhile, overhead
Anne Sexton was
circling on her broom-
stick. Sylvia Plath’s
unquiet ghost
echoed library
corridors revising
everything.
There was a touch
of lunacy in the
air a
swelling.
Ode to a Parking Garage
A wheel is a snake
with its tail in its
mouth. Just so, my
favorite all-time
parking garage is
the one at South Street
and Convention Ave,
adjacent to the
University Museum.
This is where, after
a hiatus of thirteen
years, I went
back and got my
degree via the
U. of P. It was
such fun
taking anthropology
courses there,
such fun seeing
a totem pole
after working in
a credit office.
And so, I have
a particular
fondness for that
parking garage . . .
the ramps, the
exit signs, even
the concrete booth
where the cashier
sits.
It’s all impregnated
with meaning. It’s
all impregnated
with effort, is what
it is.
Taking notes as
the professor talks
about how mankind
evolved. I know
how I evolved.
By getting my
ass
around.
The Bronze God
The whole thing about Roberto
Clemente is that he
was an infant when his
sister died in a
cooking fire.
Sensing his parents’
melancholy, Roberto was
propelled to “set things
right” throughout his
life. Which wasn’t
long. That’s why he
carried a file full of letters
from city to city.
While on the road,
he would stop
and visit needy
people in hospitals
and the like.
It’s hard to
imagine a super-
jock doing that,
seems kind of
nerdy, but he
did it.
He had a private, interior
life that brooked no
opposition.
That’s why he boarded
a rickety plane bound
for Nicaragua, laden
with supplies.
He wanted to make
things right.
They never discovered
his body after the
plane crashed in
the sea.
Maybe it was
pulverized on
impact. Maybe a
shark got it.
It doesn’t matter.
Like a god in the
Metamorphoses, he
was transported
into air and
water.
Into life.
Subdivision
Can a tract house
be haunted? I
hope so, else
what’s the point
in scrutinizing
an abandoned
split-level?
Janet and
I walk across
the weedy yard,
attracted by
official document
posted in a
window. Peering
through the
cracked glass we
spy only
this: a dirty
avocado stove,
a half-empty bottle
of orange pop
lying sideways on a
table, gray
paneling and a
yellow bag of
chips.
Across the
kitchen, no
refrigerator, just
a refrigerator-
sized place. Maybe
the owners, too, were
“lost in space.” Or
else some disaster,
fiscal or physical,
caused this
abrupt leaving.
And on the
warped-looking
door a gaudy
padlock to
prevent breaking
and entering.
Across the
street, a world
apart, a little
blond girl eyes
us warily as
we depart.
The sun shines
on her hair
as she stands,
clutching the
handlebars of
her bright
pink bike.
After a moment,
seeing we mean
no harm, she
almost smiles.
The Thirteenth Sign
I was born under
the sign of
Marilyn:
While she was
posing,
legs splayed
over a subway
grate in NYC,
my mother was
busy, same
/>
week, same
year, having
me.
What would Marilyn
say to this?
I imagine
she’d look wide,
blue-eyed for a
moment, a bit
startled, then
offer up,
innocently enough
“Well, someone
had to
be.”
Born, that is.
But I never
felt like a
Virgo . . . too
much of
a slob.
Creation is
messy, and
to the baby
involved,
birth is
an
ugly
thing.
The Good Woman
There’s no catch to this poem.
Abe Lincoln’s stepmother, Sarah Bush Johnston
Lincoln was a good woman. You might say
she saved the boy who became the man who
saved the Union. When her wagon
pulled up to that squalid cabin in Illinois, she
saw what was needed. She strongly
encouraged Tom Lincoln to lay a wood
floor and hang a real door at the entrance,
not a dirty bearskin rug. And the boy:
Abe had fallen into sullen despair. As if
his mother’s death wasn’t enough, he thought his
father a dolt. Sarah became his rock. Later she
said, “Abe was the best boy I ever saw,” and
that included her son.
If you go to a certain site on the Internet,
you can see an actual photo of Sarah Bush
Johnston Lincoln. She’s plain as a Quaker.
There’s a wary expression in her pale
eyes. Maybe she was thinking of all she
had seen. She had seen her stepson go off
to Washington in ’61. She had seen his funeral
cortege return.
That’s seeing.
Chaos
California, it’s like
Ovid’s poem, the Meta-
morphoses, in the
beginning of the world
where everything, air
land and water, was
intermingled and
without form. Heat
fought against cold
day fought against
night just like
today searing fire
downs the trees and
houses, next day
floods carry them
away.
To get moralistic
you could even say
South Central L.A.
and Brentwood are
like that. Raw
passion, untouched
by reason or
restraint; mindless
flow of looting
hostile racist
cops wet their
nightsticks in
blood.
Blood flowing
sticky as syrup
on a dog’s paws.
A “plaintive howl”
is heard on the
street. The dog
can’t sell his story
to the tabloids and
is, thus, innocent.
Transient
A poem begins with an
image. Here’s mine:
feet on a beach, someone
standing where land
meets tide. As the girl
stands, the water
sweeps and recedes, sucking
the surrounding
sand back to
the ocean until she is
left, queen of her own
tiny island: a monarchy
of one.
Anyhow, that’s my vision of
Marilyn and Los Angeles:
Beauty and isolation,
a young woman
undermined by time
and tide and
by the fault lines
of strange religions,
exploitive industries,
unstable geology,
insanity. When you
think about it, every-
thing in her biography was
unsettled, soon to
come undone.
Now, decades later, in the
blooming Grove of the mid-
Wilshire district, I spy
with my little eye
a great display of
books, a coffee table
monument to
Marilyn. Will this
fascination ever
cease? (Even the
inner-city kids sport
Marilyn tees!)
I think not, for
Marilyn is the
apotheosis of
Los Angeles,
our goddess
of transience.
The Greeks had
it right. We do
need goddesses.
Not to worship or to
propitiate but simply
to represent that
which is.
Schuylkill
As our lumbering bus kept pace
with the snarling traffic, we
looked out the window to
see major league beauty:
Three sculls gliding in
unison along the
Schuylkill, in a scene
out of Eakins. The
sun was shining, the
river was silver,
while on high,
the art museum
did a quite passable
impression of the
Parthenon.
“Look at those rowers,” I
told the boy in the
seat behind. He craned
his neck to see. The
teacher in me wanted
him to remember this
scene all his life: a
talisman against the
inevitable ugliness.
Long after I’m
gone and the rowers
are gone and even the
boy is gone, other
rowers will row and
of course the Schuylkill will
flow on.
Alma Mater
Before they put me out
for a colonoscopy, the
nurse advised me,
“Think of something
pleasant.”
So I thought of
Vassar, me standing
on the sidewalk
facing Main Building,
a historic landmark and
heartbeat of the campus.
It is a privileged
environment. One
has to jump through
hoops just to
pass through
Taylor Gate.
And I’ve always loved
the alumnae. Strong-
willed women with
liberal leanings
inventing COBOL,
studying the rotation of
galaxies, inhabiting roles,
and best of all,
writing poetry.
Punctuating Noyes Circle
these days are marble
benches inscribed
with lines by
Elizabeth Bishop.
When I slow down
long enough to look,
I can run my
hand over the
chiseled words:
“If you tasted it, it
would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely
burn your tongue. It is
like what we imagine
knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving,
utterly free . . .” *
These are the lines I
think about when
I hear of some eight-year-
old girl forced to marry.
These are line
s I
think of when I hear
about “honor” killings.
Yoko Ono got that
right. Women are the
niggers of the world.
Utterly un-free.
So when I think of
something pretty, I think
of Vassar. An imperfect
institution founded
by a brewer.
And always brewing.
*From “At the Fishhouses” by Elizabeth Bishop
Pool Party
It was great the time
the McIver’s swimming
pool burst. It was like
an atom bomb going off
in someone’s back yard
yet no one was injured.
Pool Party: The hot
young suburban couple
and their laughing
friends all crowded
into this big white
elephant of a blue
above-ground plastic
pool with their three
young sons: Manny,
Moe and Jack some-
where in the back-
ground. We were
eating dinner, I
think, when we heard
the explosion my
mother jumped, thinking
“gas” and “fire” but
instead of smoke
only water poured
forth from the McIver’s
yard gushing between
the fence slats like
Noah’s flood. I had
never seen so much
water short of a
river or ocean. There
was something delight-
ful about the way it
overwhelmed the
grass. I don’t even think
the McIvers were mad
about it. Their defective
status symbol had done
what few other material
objects could:
it roared.
Romanov Bones
Can you imagine being
bones? I can. Just
lying, all broken
and hacked amidst the
muck. Clay seals
you in—sardines in
a tin—all comfy
cozy for seventy
years. There’s really
no hurry. When you’re
