Breavman always envied the old artists who had great and accepted ideas to serve. Then the colour of gold could be laid on and glory written down. The death of a god in scarlet and glowing leaf is very different from the collapse of a drunkard in a blue café, no matter what underground literature might profess.
He never described himself as a poet or his work as poetry. The fact that the lines do not come to the edge of the page is no guarantee. Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation. He hated to argue about the techniques of verse. The poem is a dirty, bloody, burning thing that has to be grabbed first with bare hands. Once the fire celebrated Light, the dirt Humility, the blood Sacrifice. Now the poets are professional fire-eaters, freelancing at any carnival. The fire goes down easily and honours no one in particular.
Once, for a while, he seemed to serve something other than himself. Those were the only poems he ever wrote. They were for Shell. He wanted to give her back her body.
Beneath my hands
your small breasts
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.
Or was it really for her that he worked? It made it easier for him if she liked her body. The bed was more peaceful. They didn’t begin as poems at all, but propaganda. The verdict was poetry. If she continued to believe her flesh an indifferent enemy then she would not let him look at her as he wanted.
He would fold the sheet away from her to watch her while she slept. There was nothing in the room but her uncovered flesh. He didn’t have to compare it with anything. To kneel beside her and run his fingers on her lips, follow every shape, was to annihilate sunsets he couldn’t touch. Ambition, demands of excellence were happily lost as he rested in her. This was most excellent. But she had to feel herself whole. A goddess mustn’t fidget. So he must work to make her joyous and still. She learned the conventional instrument of climax, which for a woman is the beginning of pride and stillness.
When she finally shyly traded her body with his she wasn’t altogether certain that she wouldn’t disgust him. Gordon had said he loved her but he had refrained from touching her. Five years. He had allowed limited contact. Not her body but the fingers of one hand might trace his furtive dash to pleasure. Her flesh died from that. Every night it went greyer.
Breavman brushed aside the silk like a cobweb fallen across her shoulders. She made a little noise of pleasure and resignation, as if now he knew the worst. He rested his head on her breast, this old attitude speaking best for him.
She learned quickly, but no woman is so beautiful she will not want her beauty told again in rhyme. He was a professional, he knew how to build a lover to court her.
He thought poems made things happen. He had no contempt for the robot lover who made every night a celebration and any meal they took a feast. He was a skilful product, riveted with care, whom Breavman wouldn’t have minded being himself. He approved of the lover’s tenderness, was even envious of some of the things the lover said, as though he were a wit Breavman had invited for dinner.
The lover, being planned so well, had a life of his own and often left Breavman behind. He came to Shell with his gift, let us say, of an ostrich feather bought at a Second Avenue store or tea roses from the shops at the corner of Eighth Street. He sat at Shell’s table and they exchanged gossip and plans.
Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings
I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.
“They cashed a cheque for me at the supermarket.”
“The privileges of beauty. The last high caste left in classless America.”
“No, they did the same for a little brown old lady.”
“So the neighbourhood virtues persist.”
“How did your work go?”
“I blackened my page.”
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
The chatter went on and on. Stories of Hartford, the stone fountain, the summers at Lake George, huge houses remembered. Stories of Montreal, night drives with Krantz, death of a father. And as they lived together their own stories grew, myths of first meeting, first loving, quiet of coming trips.
“Can I read you something?”
“You know I can’t stand anybody else’s work.”
She wanted him to sit beside her in a special favourite way.
“Is it about me?”
“Well, wait till I read the damn thing.”
She listened seriously. She asked him to read it again. She had never been so happy. He began in his low voice which always abdicated before the meaning of the words, never forced an effect. She loved this honesty in him, this intensity that made everything important.
“Oh it’s fine, Lawrence, it’s really fine.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted.”
“But it’s not for me – it’s not for anyone.”
“No, Shell, it’s for you.”
She had a treat for him, frozen strawberries.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone of light of water
to testify against you.
Breavman watched his deputy make her happy while he stared and stared. One night he watched her while she slept. He wanted to know what happened to her. Some faces die of sleep. Mouths go limp. Gone eyes leave a corpse behind. But she was whole and lovely, her hand close to her mouth and clutching a corner of sheet. He heard a cry in the street. He crept to the window but he could see nothing. The cry sounded like the death of something.
I don’t care who’s being killed, he thought. I don’t care what crusades are being planned in historical cafés. I don’t care about lives massacred in slums. He searched the extent of his human concern beyond the room. It was this: cool condolence for the women less beautiful than she, for the men less lucky than he.
Because he was attached to magic the poems continued. He didn’t realize that Shell was won not by the text but by the totality of his attention.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m getting dressed.”
“Precisely.”
“Don’t come in, please. You’re going to get horribly tired of me. All the books say I’m supposed to guard my mystery.”
“I want to watch you get mysteriously dressed.”
It was not strange that she interpreted this devotion to her presence as love.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.