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  and goodness needs no sacrifice.

  The pity we give to nonlovers

  is even more than they deserve.

  We’re so astonished at ourselves,

  what’s left to astonish us?

  Not a rainbow in the night.

  Not a butterfly in snow.

  And when we sleep

  we dream of parting.

  But it’s a good dream,

  it’s a good dream,

  since we wake up from it.

  Key

  The key was here and now it’s gone.

  How on earth do we get in?

  Someone else may spot the key,

  think, what’s it got to do with me,

  then pick it up and walk along

  tossing the little scrap of tin.

  If the same thing ever happened

  to the love I have for you,

  who’d be the poorer by this one love?

  The whole world, not just we two.

  Nothing but a simple form

  picked up by another hand,

  it won’t open any door,

  so let the rust do what it can.

  No cards or stars or peacock’s cries:

  this horoscope can’t end otherwise.

  CALLING OUT TO YETI

  1957

  Night

  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

  So what did Isaac do?

  I ask the priest at catechism.

  Break the neighbor’s window with his ball?

  Tear his new pants

  on the fence post?

  Did he steal pencils?

  Scare the chickens?

  Cheat on tests?

  Leave the grownups

  to their stupid sleep,

  I’ve got to keep

  watch until dawn.

  The night is mute

  but mute out of malice

  and black

  as the zeal of Abraham.

  Where will I hide,

  when God’s biblical eye

  lands on me

  as it landed on Isaac?

  Ancient history.

  God can resurrect you if he wants.

  I pull the blanket over my head

  in a chill of fear.

  Something white

  will flit along the window,

  then rustle through the room,

  like a bird or the wind.

  But no bird has

  such enormous wings,

  no wind wears

  such a long gown.

  The Lord God will pretend

  he flew in by accident,

  there must be some mistake,

  then he’ll take my father

  to the kitchen and hatch plots,

  blow a giant trumpet in his ear.

  And at the crack of dawn

  my father will drag me along,

  I’ll go, I’ll go,

  dark with hatred.

  More defenseless

  than November leaves,

  I won’t believe in goodness

  or love.

  No trust,

  nothing can be trusted.

  No caring,

  no more live heart in my chest.

  When it happens, as it has to happen,

  when it happens,

  a dried mushroom will be beating,

  not a heart.

  The Lord God waits,

  from a balcony of clouds he checks,

  does the stake light,

  is it nice and even,

  and he sees

  how to die out of spite,

  since I’ll die,

  refusing to be saved!

  From that night

  much worse than any bad dream,

  from that night

  much worse than loneliness,

  the Lord God began

  inch by inch

  day by day

  to move

  from literalness

  to metaphor.

  Hania

  Now see, here’s Hania, the good servant.

  And those aren’t frying pans, you know, they’re halos.

  And that’s a holy image, knight and serpent.

  The serpent means vanity in this vale of woes.

  And that’s no necklace, that’s her rosary.

  Her shoes have toes turned up from daily kneeling.

  Scarf dark as all the nights she sits up, weary,

  and waits to hear the morning church bells pealing.

  Scrubbing the mirror once, she saw a devil:

  Bless me, Father, he shot a nasty look.

  Blue with yellow stripes, eyes black as kettles—

  you don’t think he’ll write me in his book?

  And so she gives at Mass, she prays the mysteries,

  and buys a small heart with a silver flame.

  Since work began on the new rectory,

  the devils have all run away in shame.

  The cost is high, preserving souls from sin,

  but only old folks come here, scraping by.

  With so much of nothing, razor-thin,

  Hania would vanish in the Needle’s Eye.

  May, renounce your hues for wintery gray.

  Leafy bough, throw off your greenery.

  Clouds, repent; sun, cast your beams away.

  Spring, save your blooms for heaven’s scenery.

  I never heard her laughter or her tears.

  Raised humble, she owns nothing but her skin.

  A shadow walks beside her—her mortal fears,

  her tattered kerchief yammers in the wind.

  Nothing Twice

  Nothing can ever happen twice.

  In consequence, the sorry fact is

  that we arrive here improvised

  and leave without the chance to practice.

  Even if there is no one dumber,

  if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,

  you can’t repeat the class in summer:

  this course is only offered once.

  No day copies yesterday,

  no two nights will teach what bliss is

  in precisely the same way,

  with exactly the same kisses.

  One day, perhaps, some idle tongue

  mentions your name by accident:

  I feel as if a rose were flung

  into the room, all hue and scent.

  The next day, though you’re here with me,

  I can’t help looking at the clock:

  A rose? A rose? What could that be?

  Is it a flower or a rock?

  Why do we treat the fleeting day

  with so much needless fear and sorrow?

  It’s in its nature not to stay:

  today is always gone tomorrow.

  With smiles and kisses, we prefer

  to seek accord beneath our star,

  although we’re different (we concur)

  just as two drops of water are.

  Flagrance

  So here we are, the naked lovers,

  lovely, as we both agree,

  with eyelids as our only covers

  we lie in the dark, invisibly.

  But they already know, they know,

  all four corners, the night air,

  the upright table and the stove,

  suspicious shadows fill the chairs.

  The tea grows cold; the cups know why,

  although the reason’s left unsaid.

  Swift must lay his hopes aside,

  his book lies open, but unread.

  As for the birds? I saw them flying

  yesterday as, without shame,

  they scrawled across the open sky

  the letters spelling out your name.

  As for the trees? Well, can’t you hear

  what they keep whispering about?

  You say
it’s in the atmosphere,

  but how’d the atmosphere find out?

  A moth flies in the open window

  on furry wings, it hovers first,

  then soars above and swoops below,

  and stubbornly hums over us.

  Perhaps it catches what we miss

  with its uncanny insect sight?

  I didn’t see, you didn’t guess,

  our hearts were glowing in the night.

  Buffo

  First, our love will die, alas,

  then two hundred years will pass,

  then we’ll meet again at last—

  this time in the theater, played

  by a couple of comedians,

  him and her, the public’s darlings.

  Just a little farce, with songs,

  patter, jokes, and final bows,

  a vaudeville comedy of manners,

  certain to bring down the house.

  You’ll amuse them endlessly

  on the stage with your cravat

  and your petty jealousy.

  So will I, love’s silly pawn,

  with my heart, my joy, my crown,

  my heart broken, my joy gone,

  my crown tumbling to the ground.

  To the laughter’s loud refrain,

  we will meet and part again,

  seven mountains, seven rivers

  multiplying our pain.

  If we haven’t had enough

  of despair, grief, all that stuff,

  lofty words will kill us off.

  Then we’ll stand up, take our bows:

  hope that you’ve enjoyed our show.

  Every patron with his spouse

  will applaud, get up, and go.

  They’ll reenter their lives’ cages,

  where love’s tiger sometimes rages,

  but the beast’s too tame to bite.

  We’ll remain the odd ones out,

  silly heathens in their fools’ caps,

  listening to the small bells ringing

  day and night.

  Commemoration

  They made love in a hazel grove,

  beneath the little suns of dew;

  dry leaves and twigs got in their hair

  and dry dirt too.

  Swallow’s heart, have

  mercy on them.

  They both knelt down on the lakeshore,

  they combed the dry leaves from their hair;

  small fish, a star’s converging rays,

  swam up to stare.

  Swallow’s heart, have

  mercy on them.

  Reflected in the rippling lake,

  trees trembled, nebulous and gray;

  O swallow, let them never, never

  forget this day.

  O swallow, cloud-borne thorn,

  anchor of the air,

  Icarus improved,

  coattails in Assumption,

  O swallow, calligraphy,

  clockhand minus minutes,

  early ornithogothic,

  heaven’s cross-eyed glance,

  O swallow, knife-edged silence,

  mournful exuberance,

  the aureole of lovers,

  have mercy on them.

  Classifieds

  WHOEVER’S found out what location

  compassion (heart’s imagination)

  can be contacted at these days

  is herewith urged to name the place,

  and sing about it in full voice,

  and dance like crazy and rejoice

  beneath the frail birch that appears

  to be upon the verge of tears.

  I TEACH silence

  in all languages

  through intensive examination of:

  the starry sky,

  the Sinanthropus’s jaws,

  a grasshopper’s hop,

  an infant’s fingernails,

  plankton,

  a snowflake.

  I RESTORE lost love.

  Act now! Special offer!

  You lie on last year’s grass

  bathed in sunlight to the chin

  while winds of summers past

  caress your hair and seem

  to lead you in a dance.

  For further details, write: “Dream.”

  WANTED: someone to mourn

  the elderly who die

  alone in old folks’ homes.

  Applicants, don’t send forms

  or birth certificates.

  All papers will be torn,

  no receipts will be issued

  at this or later dates.

  FOR PROMISES made by my spouse,

  who’s tricked so many with his sweet

  colors and fragrances and sounds—

  dogs barking, guitars in the street—

  into believing that they still

  might conquer loneliness and fright,

  I cannot be responsible.

  Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

  Moment of Silence

  Wait, you can’t go in there,

  it’s all smoke and flames!

  —Four kids got trapped inside,

  I’m going in for them!

  So how do you

  suddenly lose the habit

  of yourself?

  of day follows night?

  of the snows of yesteryear?

  of rosy apples?

  of the yearning for love,