the garlic peeler

the garlic peeler lived on the hill
above the wharf
where he could see the ships fade
their masts pricked and drained of their mightiness
as they dwarfed into the horizon

one day I’ll follow as far as

there was a road that led from his home to the shop
where he peeled and pressed garlic
and the trail was marked with his scent
the stinging, shiny sweat of garlic and garlic’s kiss
stuck to his fingers, palms, his forehead
where his fingertips had jogged across
their waves as marked as the mediterranean

i can follow myself home i can

let me see you let me see you
louisa would beg
and they spoke every sunday night
read each other poetry and historic fiction
great dramas and translated epics
because stealing other’s words was sometimes easier
when you had so much left to say
and the garlic peeler hated the smell of his telephone
the smell of his hands, his breath

but he loved the sound of louisa
learned to remove her words from her voice
and just hear her
unadulterated
a voice like low harps, played at night

hear you from here I can hear you

louisa found the garlic peeler
at work and
when they made love he left his fingerprints on her
and she left her teeth in him
and Louisa smelled like rosemary and elm trees
and the garlic peeler held her in until she left an ache in his chest

149 beach 140th st.

goldie knew the importance of small spaces
and burrowed her things in nooks the way i'd add stones to jars
(large as fists then palms then pennies then small as promises)
and around her house there was no place not anchored down
by salvaged items and her quick steps

under her bed she kept locks of her children's hair
in paper bags folded down and dated
she kept the receipts of the grocer from greenpoint
under her mattress and jars of fat below the stairs

she kept money in a box of throat lozenges underneath the sink
and folded her clothing like omelets and stood them straight up in her dresser drawers
and moving and pacing as though about to be trapped
she hung her linens on hangers like a jacob's ladder
one beneath one beneath one beneath

it was not the depression, she told her son
it was rockaway
these apartments are like caves with closets
and she folded her kitchen table down from the wall
i have to make space possible
i have to stay moving

years later i asked my grandfather what had happened to her eyes
gouged out and cloudy like the low hanging clouds
and he said it was just the photograph
because the photographer had risen his arm and told them to hold it
and his arm stayed silent and tense for a full minute
but goldie's eyes did not
and wandered around the room, to the large windows and high ceilings of the photographer's studio and thought of his empty rooms
she had thought he only wanted her body to be still

as though a deer sensing a great fire
goldie knew to store all those photos in the attic
so when it flooded from the navy yard to my grandfather's bedroom
goldie went to the attic and fished the photos out
trembling and pacing and thumbing them one more time
beat by beat, face by face, understanding everything
rain crowding the corners of the room
she folded as many people as would fit beneath her blouse

acknowledging the inevitable
she went to the window to see if she should swim

on the revolutions of the celestial spheres

I.

i remember the year you stopped painting
stifled it like a brush fire that grew insolent
and unwieldy in the backyard

you forced your hands to be still
pushed them straight down from your arms
and heavy with life and buzzing numb
they swung, vast anchors
searching for sea's bottom

you kept your eyes shut and quiet
to avoid seeing your next painting manifest
jump before you like a pen-pal you grew up writing to
but had not yet met

and when you spoke
your voice lay wrapped and mummified
for fear of giving too much away
about how much you missed it

before copernicus shook the galaxy
and scattered planets, left them strewn haphazardly, ellipses
there was a belief that light came from the eyes
and wherever you looked light was shed
in the shapes of cones, perfect headlights into your lover's face

and you had learned to keep your eyes closed


II.

when i lived in a time zone
that made our voices echo on the phone
i starved for you
i began writing like each breath pushed through pen
was a loaf of bread
i was dry boned with hunger
suddenly deaf-mute
reserving my energies for that most necessary
reduction to the tiny canvas of a brown notebook and black pen
moving at a speed that left letters half-curled after being left in the rain
and expelling words bulimically, as though ridding myself sated me

while you stayed comatose
i seized like an epileptic
skittish, heart a beating bumblebee


III.

you began painting again to slow my pulse
because unlike copernicus
i had swallowed the responsibility of the universe
rather than scattering it to space

your hands began clasping palette knives arthritically
creaking, wooden and unused
but remarkably responsive
titanium, umber, vandyke brown oiled your joints

you stretched your neck, shook the dust off
and bones popping with potential energy
you broke canvas like a stubborn horse
swathed it in primer
and moved your body like a swimmer

i let myself keep my eyes closed
and inhaled to taste the fumes of starting over
i used your strokes as my metronome, my compass
insides finally aligned

my muscles released with my breath
my body, limp
and although i did not stir

i felt us moving forward

the flight or the seed

my great grandmother fled through russia following the lines she kept
on a map she drew in her palm
and when sweat and salt and heavy things
washed them away
she followed the lifeline that stretched
from the base of her wrist
to between the high peaks of her index finger and thumb
she showed her brother, my great uncle mendel
pointing to her palm
here's the river she said that means we're getting closer
and he said but see how long our journey is?

she brought three things
the first was mendel
who i imagine like the byzantine christ child
ancient face, baby's body
the second was the samovar
that my mother fought and clawed for when we divided up the will
and the third was a child inside her
who would grow to be my grandfather

through the walls of his womb, my grandfather heard the musical drawlings of a southern russian
iosif dzhugashvili, who had changed his name to stalin
because he hated his accent
and wanted it to sound like steel breaking bodies
in iron fists

how could i stay here she asked herself
aware of her organic insides, her fleshy body that she loved so much
she could not stay for a man of metal and promises
and whispering the tefilat haderech, the traveler's prayer
she and mendel flew with bodies that grew wings

when she came to brooklyn, they called her goldie
and she gave birth to a son who had a son who had a son
as though they'd always existed inside each other
like a russian doll
and had traveled all that way just for the joy of existing


a few years after she had forgotten how to speak
and a few days before i was born
she held her lined hand
to my mothers belly
to show me the way out

walden

when i started to forget, you showed me
pushed my hands into the sand and
buried me
feel that you said this is the end of summer
and you were right
because the sand was cold and sharp
and stung pleasingly, like rain
the kind that comes to wash leaves down into the gutters
of houses and wipe the streets clear of summer sands
and hopscotched chalkly afternoons
that children brought home from the beach and left
on the pavement

the wind picked up in white gusts and set the gray water whistling
made the willows bend back in surprise
at how quickly cold had come

but you stood to face it
you shrugged off your cloths and i watched
you run into the water

catching nighttime

very young
i'd brought a jar to meet up with eight pm
just minutes before bedtime
minutes before a story and tucked in and washed hands for small prayers
there had been a nighttime tale of fireflies
animals that flew through dark like trucks
sure of themselves and their hazard lights
and from tall things
i'd found each speck and each little life
standing sure and true
i held my jar to them

come to me come to me
sleep in my bed and let me wake to you

i dropped honey in each jar to act as bait
let the light catch and fall
illuminate
this would be home
this would be a beautiful home for you to stay with me

i climbed to the top of the maple out front
branches tapping the roof like fingers
held my jar up up up

the limbs shook and i swayed
and when my father came out he said
what are you doing being so dangerous?
and i told him i was catching stars

i held my jar above my head
be mine
be mine be mine be mine

ha! a sonnet!

and oh how slowly new mexico grows
let a breeze take me there, let me be blown
i'm lost in tennessee and my mother knows
that coming back to tennessee is coming back alone

oh okay oklahoma, i'm yours now
give me cold dark wines and some peach bruised sin
find me in andarko, in jay, in bristow
and come find me oklahoma, again

all to go home to you, montana
i'll lay my bed in big horn's heart, breathe deep
montana, montana, montana
and i'll pray that it's me whose soul i keep

if i'm gone before you wake, leave it be
there's just still so much left i've got to see