East to the Lighthouse's
Shiny Glass Cabin
I have known this place before
a room I slept in all my life
the wood smoke smell the lobster boats
setting off at dawn
their cabin lamps aglow
light on the water and the weather clear
never clearer in all my days.
Was
that too much to ask
a
life lived in the hills above
everything
then worth living?
No more than a girl
I imagined things in the dark out there
in the airless dark
I thought it'd be the death of me
little did I know
that it would be the death of you.
Hand
in hand we sat on the pier
and
watched the tidal pull
I
never thought to ask if you would promise me
a
word or two if I had asked
I
would've put my heart in it
my
whole heart
if
only I had thought to ask.
A uniform in the closet hangs
and somewhere in the house a voice
unheard of one day comes alive.
Tiny
little thing all jaundiced and raw
out
into the world before his time
tiny
little thing with tears for eyes
pop
him into the window like a loaf of bread
bread
smells rising from the window
rising
from his body as he warmed in sun.
I took the weight of him in my arms
weighed him warmly in my own two arms
held him as a mother holds
a feeling beyond the weight of him.
My
god the loneliness they could hold
those
little hands his only hands
cupped
like water in his two small hands
every
day from the window borne
the
loneliness in his two cupped hands
his
father's boy his father's eyes
somewhere
in the house his father hangs.
Heavy as a stone how many times
I wished him out unbirthed before his time
send him back the way he came
insensible.
It's
wrong to say I didn't have the nerve for it
I
all but did when the need came on
who
did I think I was to take myself away
something
living needed me.
All that summer I had him to myself
heavy as a stone then lightening.
Widow-birth
the worst of it
tea
and toast and mother's milk
mother
may I still?
A little snatch of sleep then stroll him down the shore
sea suck at the pilings gray sea foam
sweeping the sand the last time out
rain turned the water green.
I
dreamed a time I found him once
no
more than a boy one winter's evening
kneeling
at the fireplace with his bathrobe on
an
aspect I thought of prayer
an
aspect I thought of some obscure devotion
in
the warmth before the fire.
And then he reached to place it there
a little toy soldier
laid it out in embers by the fire
better off dead I thought
and that was not the worst of it.
My
far-gone mother's mother held a photograph up
and
said consoling things
poor
stranger she couldn't recall your name
what
was his name
you
always called him Jack
don't
say
was
there another war?
What was that day what hour round
the corner came I just looked up
and there it was the sun above
the breakwater when the telephone rang.
The
head came out with a cry
out
from the dark his inwardness upon him
an
armful of his inwardness
white
gowns passing making up the room.
I almost said
when will his hands his father's hands
when will his eyes his father's eyes
only faintly stirring from the outside in.
Cradle
to crib he cried
and
nightly sang himself to sleep
a
song I taught him I suppose as time wore on
as
moonlight crossed the bare wood floor
from
that window there to this one here
until
I had enough of it.
They came to me their eyes withdrawn
and arm in arm walked me to my room
and focused my attention
and made my way
one early winter evening with the curtains drawn.
Soon
thereafter they were gone
all
gone.
It was my way of seeing things they left behind
my monologue
if ever I could finish it I might sleep through
just as they had promised me
burdened by myself alone
as much at home as anywhere
burdened by myself alone
one early winter evening with the curtains drawn.
Poet, essayist, and translator, Sherod Santos is the author
of six books of poetry, most recently The Intricated Soul: New and Selected
Poems (W. W. Norton). In 2005 he published Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation.
He is the recipient of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize and an Award in
Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Chicago.
