Pagan Heaven

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