Apart from the apparent values,
there are lessons in the circular:
paradigms for history,
time in a round world, turning,
love with another of your species –
To watch my only daughter
widening her circles is to ease
headlong into the traffic
of her upbringing.
Until nearly four she screamed
at my absence, mourned
my going out for any reason,
cried at scoldings,
agreed to common lies regarding
thunder, Christmas,
baby teeth. Last year
she started school
without incident;
this year ballet and new math. Soon
I think my love will seem
entirely deficient.
Later there’s the hokey-pokey
and dim lights for the partners’ dance.
She finds a shaky nine-year-old
to skate around
in counter-clockwise orbits,
laughing.
Is it more willingness than balance?
Is letting go the thing that keeps her steady?
I lean against the side-boards sipping
coffee. I keep a smile ready.
*
Custody
Every other weekend they go to their mother’s
Some Tuesdays or Wednesdays they spend the night.
She takes them for two weeks in the summer.
We divvy up the holidays. Otherwise
they live here, with me. We agreed to this
after months of court-appointed enmity
during most of which we behaved like children.
In the end, I was ‘awarded custody’ –
a legalese to make it sound like winning –
pancakes and carpools and the dead of nights
with nightmares or earaches or wet bedlinen
Their mother got what’s called her visitation rights –
a kind of catch-up-ball she plays with gifts
and fast-food dinners-out and talk of trips
to Disneyworld in the sparkling future.
They were ten, nine, six, and four when it happened.
I played their ages in the Lotto for awhile.
I never won. They were, of course, the prize.
They were, likewise, the ones, when we were through
with all that hateful paperwork and ballyhoo,
who seemed like prisoners of care and keeping
and settled into their perplexed routines
like criminals or parties to a grief –
accomplices in love and sundering.
*
Refusing at Fifty-two to Write Sonnets
It came to him that he could nearly count
How many Octobers he had left to him
In increments of ten or, say, eleven
Thus: sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five.
He couldn’t see himself at ninety-six –
Humanity’s advances notwithstanding
In health-care, self-help, or new-age regimens –
What with his habits and family history,
The end he thought is nearer than you think.
The future, thus confined to its contingencies,
The present moment opens like a gift:
The balding month, the grey week, the blue morning,
The hour’s routine, the minute’s passing glance –
All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this?
At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks.
*
A Good Death Even When It Kills You
Afterwards, she watched the snowfall closely,
counting her blessings from a window indoors,
where only the low din of tableware
and hushed neighbors among the casseroles
trespassed her focus on the ghost-white weather.
Anyway, he was doing what he liked most—
out before daylight with his shanty and lanterns,
wax-worms and jig poles, thermos and brandy;
the whole lashup in long tow on foot to where
last night his calculations put a school of bluegill—
instead of hooked to some intensive hardware
to chart and graph and lengthen the whole thing,
or long suffering to the same end with a cancer
or half a dozen other ways she knew of. No,
this was a quick and lethal one, according
to the coroner. And she was glad for him.
A good death, even when it kills you, is
nonetheless some better than a bad one.
When the snow quit falling, there was still the lake
and then a stubble of cornfield uphill in rows
and then two birds above a stand of winter oaks
circling in the gray unfocused space of weather.
When she could see no farther, she began to hate him
for fifteen years of rearing children and
for cold nights when she warmed against him and for
all the tender habits he observed in love, because
he was all she’d ever wanted and was dead at forty,
spudding the ice for a hole, to get a line in.
*
The Sin-Eater
Argyle the sin-eater came the day after—
a narrow, hungry man whose laughter
and the wicked upturn of his one eyebrow
put the local folks in mind of trouble.
But still they sent for him and sat him down
amid their whispering contempts to make
his table near the dead man’s middle,
and brought him soda bread and bowls of beer
and candles, which he lit against the reek
that rose off that impenitent cadaver
though bound in skins and soaked in rosewater.
Argyle eased the warm loaf right and left
and downed swift gulps of beer and venial sin,
then lit into the bread now leavened with
the corpse’s cardinal mischiefs, then he said
“Sixpence, I’m sorry.” And the widow paid him.
Argyle took his leave then, down the land
between hayricks and Friesians with their calves
considering the innocence in all
God’s manifold creation but for Man,
and how he’d perish but for sin and mourning.
Two parishes between here and the ocean:
a bellyful tonight is what he thought,
please God, and breakfast in the morning.
Contents List
Cloud of Witnesses: An Introduction • 19
from SKATING WITH HEATHER GRACE
Michael’s Reply to the White Man • 33
A Death • 35
Venice • 36
The Blood We Paid For • 37
A Family of Fishermen • 39
Tatyana • 40
Like My Father Waking Early • 41
Marriage • 43
Lessons from Berkeley • 44
O Canada • 45
The Widow • 46
A Dream of Death in the First Person • 47
Skating with Heather Grace • 48
Learning Gravity • 50
A Clearing in the Woods • 57
A Note on the Rapture to His True Love • 58
Pornography • 59
The Liturgist • 60
I Felt Myself Turning • 61
A Good Death Even When It Kills You • 62
To Her Sisters on the Nature of the Universe • 63
Where It Came From • 64
Noon on Saturday • 65
Wormwood • 67
Pruning • 68
The Grandmothers • 69
For the Ex-Wife on the Occasion of Her Birthday • 70
from GRIMALKIN & OTHER POEMS Attende Domine • 75
Aisling • 76
At the Opening of Oak Grove Cemetery Bridge • 78
Green Bananas • 81 Adoro Te Devote • 82
Grimalkin • 83
Casablanca • 85 In Paradisum • 86 Inviolata • 87
Liberty • 88
No Prisoners • 89
O Gloriosa Virginum • 92
Rhododendrons • 93
That Scream If You Ever Hear It • 94
The Nines • 96
The Lives of Women • 97
Tommy • 98
West Highland • 99
from STILL LIFE IN MILFORD
Art History, Chicago • 103
Kisses • 105
Bishop’s Island • 106
Rentals Ledger • 107
An Evening Walk to the Sea by Friesians • 108
Heavenward • 110
Couplets • 111
The Moveen Notebook • 112
The Old Operating Theatre, London, All Souls, Night • 124
She Instructs the Brethren on the Laws of Love • 125 Still Life in Milford—Oil on Canvas by Lester Johnson • 126
from WALKING PAPERS
Euclid • 131
Montbretia • 133
Fr. Andrews • 135
To Be Among These Elegant Voices • 136
Corpses Do Not Fret Their Coffin Boards • 139
Oh Say Grim Death • 140
The Life of Fiction • 142
After Your Going • 143
Thirteen for Sean at Thirty • 144
Dear Mr. President • 145
Local Heroes • 147
Dear Mr. Vice President • 149
Himself • 152
Dear Madam Secretary • 153
On a Bar of Chinese Soap • 155
Dear Messrs. Attorneys General • 156
Walking Papers • 158
Calling • 162
Refusing at Fifty-Two to Write Sonnets • 165
from THE SIN-EATER: A BREVIARY
The Sin-Eater • 168
Argyle in Agony • 169
Argyle’s Vapors • 170
Argyle’s Balance • 171
Argyle’s Ejaculations • 172
Argyle’s Retreat • 173
Argyle’s Dream of the Church Dove • 174
Argyle in Carrigaholt • 175
Argyle’s Return to the Holy Island • 176
Argyle’s Stone • 177
Argyle at Loop Head • 178
Argyle’s Eucharist • 179
A Corporal Work of Mercy • 180
Argyle Considers the Elements • 181
Argyle Among the Moveen Lads • 182
His Ambulations • 183
His Repasts • 184
He Considers Not the Lilies but Their Excellencies • 185
He Weeps Among the Clare Antiquities • 186
Argyle at the Ennis Friary • 187
He Posits Certain Mysteries • 188
His Purgations • 189
Argyle on Knocknagaroon • 190
Recompense His Paraclete • 191
CLOUD OF WITNESSES: NEW POEMS
A Laving Song • 194
Libra • 195
Accordion • 196
You Who Never Came In • 198
Nativity • 199
Yossef • 200
Some Octaves on Holy Orders • 201
When She Knew • 204
Recompense • 205
How Howard Armstrong Learned the Verities • 206
The Desert Years • 207
At Moyarta • 208
Twelve Days of Christmas • 209
What Shall We Say? • 210
Receipt • 213
St. Kevin and the Temptress • 214
Personal • 215
Her Mother’s Irises • 216
San Cassiano • 217 Par Rum Pum Pum Pum • 218
Waterfowl at Summer’s End • 220
Moveen Solstice • 221
Flotilla • 222
Genesis 3 • 223
Franchise 2016 • 224
Corrine Among the Fronds of Basil • 226
Gratis • 227
Double Sonnet for the Florist’s Son • 228
Interment • 229
Old Dogs • 230
Theodicy: A Lament • 231
The Prince Conti • 233
Another Miracle • 234
In the Gents Loo of the Stella Maris • 235
To His Grandchildren as Dark Draws Hither • 236
Priestess • 238 Digitas Paternae Dextrae • 239
Morning Among Piebalds • 240
Buskers • 241
Meadowhawk • 242
The Sick of the Palsy Healed and His Sins Forgiven • 243
Benediction • 244
Little Elegy • 245
