The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Gary Fincke
Prosopagnosia—the inability to recognize facesBecause the rich detail of each face can Be so frail, because all that’s remembered Of even the familiar is the brief Chorus of its anthem, now, in this blue Morning, I’m working at preservation, Taking this self-taught instruction from when, Happening on a crying child, I knelt To ask that girl the lost questions, her name, Who had mislaid her in Gimbel’s, a store That featured thirteen floors of merchandise. Toys were above everything but furniture, But we were on the first floor with perfume, Cosmetics, and well-dressed saleswomen who Offered samples. Security, like her mother, Was somewhere else, but when she clutched my hand, Such evidence of terrible intent Was suggested by a choice of exits, I half-expected an abduction alarm. No one hailed that girl or me, not even When we approached the gilded, outside doors. The air was funereal, the shoppers Old women who had driven to Pittsburgh Since World War II, so few of them by then The store was rumored bankrupt. The day before, A local woman had revealed she could not Recognize faces: Her daughter’s teacher. A friend from church. The identities of wait staff. Her daughter, seven, prompted the names Of neighbors, reminded her which friends Had arrived for sleepovers. Like a bride Receiving guests, she’d taught herself to smile. A wonder we recognize anyone, She said, so much we have in common, Believable, earlier today, when I was twice greeted by name and could not Cough up recognition, when a stranger In a park, this summer, called out to my wife And me, mentioning a class reunion, And I slowed to fumble for a lost name Until my wife tugged me past a sentinel Into a crowded, well-lit path, hissing As if she were teaching a child who still Searched the mug book of the everyday For the identity of those to fear. Each blessing is lace. A woman, at last, Recognized her granddaughter’s trusting face. Listening for the River My father, the Scoutmaster, had a friend Who was a coal miner, someone, he said, Who would teach all of us to straighten up And fly right with an hour underground. Absolutely, the miner instructed, No wandering off, your helmet lamps on, And we followed in a stooped, single file, Poking each other like classroom clowns. When Joey Rask flicked his light off, then on, Then off, saying SOS to laughter, I was embarrassed for my father’s shhh, How he held his position at line’s end Like some elderly substitute teacher Afraid to challenge boys. Again, that shhh, And his friend steered us through a corridor, Then another, stopped and said, “All lights out,” Orders we welcomed, our hands turned spiders Upon necks and faces, hysterical Until that miner said our neighborhood River ran so close we could hear it through The wall. In darkness become universe, He said an upstream mine had flooded once, The river breaking through a wall like this, Drowning twenty-eight miners like a sack Of puppies because someone decided That wall was thick enough. No lights, he said, Absolutely none, his voice steady as A newsman’s. Now, he said, hands on the wall And listen. Which we did, one, then three boys Crying, learning fear for a future made By strangers, choices that could smother us With or without our electric helmets. Later, inside our car, the radio Forbidden, my father held me hostage With his silence, and I did nothing but Notice the sky empty until he said, “A man can become as angry as God.” As if disobeying deserved terror, That he agreed with his friend whose outrage Assaulted thirteen boys with tragedy Until he’d taught the simple alphabet Of light and dark, all of us confessing Helplessness in order to resurface Into the natural light, into air. Salvation All limber buildings, all the skyscrapers that sway moreThough what we’ve already done defines us, There’s desire, always, to be forgiven, Mourning become the primary language For the disabilities of our lives. So often, we need to test resilience, How much the heart can take, as if it were A tall building that has to handle wind, Its speed and angle, things that threaten height. Sunday, leaving New York, my wife and I Stopped speaking, that refusal, from anger, Then pride, stretched until Tuesday’s planes-as-bombs Resurrected our speech to seek the sound Of our children’s voices from three cities. That day and the next, talking and talking, We were new to each other again, filled With words for the daughter we could not reach, The Manhattan child I’d wanted to slap For declaring me selfish, ranking it The best of my sins, as if she could count The hours I justified my silences. She talked like an engineer explaining “Close to instability” in language Meant to amplify fear, hurried me down Shame’s stairs to safety. And then, from outside, The surprise of what saves us, those we love Untangling themselves from ruins that shift And shudder and steady, then open to An extraordinary pocket of light. Skill Just often enough somebody comes back From certain death, prompting us to believe We might be the fortunate who go on Like my friend thrown clear of his Thunderbird That exploded on impact, my neighbor’s Young son who survived eleven minutes Under frigid water, or once, even Myself skidding into a four-wheel drift Across a low median and both lanes Of oncoming, rush-hour, freeway traffic. Unscathed. Upright. But not miraculous. Not free fall ten thousand feet to a swamp Or twelve stories to a sturdy awning. Not, the week I rejoined traffic and kept Close escape to myself, a young pilot Bringing in a plane with a blown hatch door, Ferrying a full manifest of ghosts Back to the everyday task of living. Safely on earth, the one in ten thousand, He spoke about trying to keep that plane Alive, throttling up, working the small chance Of improvisation while it banked left And dove, drawn sideways and down by its wound. “If I land this damn thing,” he admitted, Was the first phrase of his hurried promise That ended with “all the rest of my life.” And then he started the full-time labor Of recognizing how, after those first Breathless minutes of surviving, he would Never again be as skillful, that it Saddened him until he seemed an athlete Just retired, his gratitude so awkward He understood this was the first day of The long sentence of dissatisfaction. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |