À Grande Vitesse
Beside the tracks, Paris to Bordeaux,
leafless trees keep breaking out
in balls of mistletoe
whose parasitic pompoms
clot the crotches of the branches
with promises of kisses.
Le gui they call it here,
where Roman farmers planted vines
and this or that exceptional year
still tastes of Caesar.
But why buy wine
one could die before drinking
at full maturity, a decade or so
off in the future? Farsighted sybarites
presumably know
just the right ratio
of pleasure to providence;
yet where in these vineyards, their chateaux
flashing past, where in quick villages,
each with its own, Decembery cold,
unheated churchful of ether-sweet incense,
do you find one of those?
Jogger at the Bloody Angle
She lopes upon the frenzy of the past
in blue running bra, red running shorts,
her ponytail keeping time in steady stride
like a metronome as yellow as new buttercups
along the road beside these sunken earthworks.
Her shoes and music cost more dollars
than some who died here made in a year,
but dollars meant something different then,
and if she gives no thought to men
calf-deep in mud and purple puddles
from foggy dawn till long past midnight,
when the shot-up oak crashed down in rain
and soon became a shorthand sign for all
that Clio can shrink to a paragraph,
it’s only fair. They gave the same to her.
A park’s a park and green land rare
in so much progress, so many houses
standing now where Barlow crossed the Po.
Why should she know a thing about it?
Why should she care? She does her share
just running the route of that morning attack,
quitting the road and cantering the field
to disappear in dips and ripples of the ground
and teach the contours of that topography,
of dead space that gave a little more life
to those who sheltered a few minutes there,
even better for her detachment.
Forgot Your Password?
Your mother’s maiden name,
Your mother’s date of birth,
Your father’s favorite food
When he still ate food,
Your best friend’s street address,
Your sister’s telephone number,
Your brother’s blood pressure reading
The last time you saw him,
Your lover’s license plate,
Your president’s net worth,
The population of a country
Where few would need a password.
To a Predicted Pandemic
Here at graybreak it’s hard to believe
cousins of songsters who sauté the air
in butterfat love calls
could spatter us all with fatal virus.
All people.
At least you’re not elitist,
and equal rights might be nice for a change,
everyone masked, even-stephen, fair shake,
when it comes to headache, fever, chills,
pneumonia. Or will you make
division worse: who’s got a doctor,
who gets vaccine, who lives clean
and cared-for enough to fend off advances?
O whom will you smite and what can we smear
on our doorposts and lintels?
Hand soap? (Now there’s a good investment.)
Or maybe you’ll spare whoever can hear
amidst avian uproar this boisterous morning
the white-throated sparrow
on its way elsewhere?
If so,
could one take your clemency
in the form of a gift certificate,
as schools empty, economies totter,
and give it to another
more afraid to go?
Etymological
What not. What have you. What if.
What of it. What’s what. What with,
as in, What with one’s having so little say
in making it rain, healing the brain,
redistributing lopsided gain,
it’s best to eat less, hug more,
vote and pray and give away
whatever one can, or,
What with a grizzly killing a cub
so he can mate with its milkless mother
all the sooner, what does it matter
that Japanese has no word for menopause?
The cries, the claws,
alas, alack, the woesome’s winning out
it seems, even if we behave ourselves,
and yet and yet
a cup of clean water,
a spell of good weather, the clearing up
of a cold or an ache, and all right! whoopee!
hot diggety! from Nilo-Saharan
or Malayo-Polynesian or Uralic-Altaic
for grateful acceptance sometimes mistaken
for comfy complacency.
Frequently Asked Questions
What time is it? How much does it cost?
Do spiders have dreams? Where are we going?
What difference does it make? Will this plane crash?
Why do you ask? Does that feel good?
What’s Sanskrit for ecstasy? How long have I got?
Can you use it in a sentence? If it’s high tide here,
is it low tide there? May I see your driver’s license?
Where did you get such a ravishing rib cage?
Does life exist elsewhere? What’s the point? Is it hard
to perform your own tracheotomy? Would you call a taxi?
Where’s the bathroom? Is service included? Do you think
I look fat? What is prayer?
Got a light? White or red? Do you have this
in a larger size? What grade are you in?
Which way to Pisa? Why did I ever say yes?
Who is my neighbor? Business or pleasure?
Is this seat free? What’s the local specialty?
Haven’t we discussed disgust? Why have you forsaken me?
Does my vote count? What kind of bird was that?
Do they speak English? Am I hurting you?
Spare some change? Which way’s north? Will you wait for me?
Think it’ll snow? What does she want for her birthday?
Where’s the nearest emergency exit? Will you take a check?
Is there stuff in my teeth? Faster or slower?
Have you seen my glasses? Do I need a reservation?
How do you spell that? Anything from the mini-bar?
What are you wearing? Does it help to fight back
when attacked by a mountain lion? Promise?
What time is it? How much does it cost?
Do spiders have dreams? Where are we going?
What difference does it make? Will this plane crash?
Why do you ask? Does that feel good?
What’s Sanskrit for ecstasy? How long have I got?
Can you use it in a sentence? If it’s high tide here,
is it low tide there? May I see your driver’s license?
Where did you get such a ravishing rib cage?
Does life exist elsewhere? What’s the point? Is it hard
to perform your own tracheotomy? Would you call a taxi?
Where’s the bathroom? Is service included? Do you think
I look fat? What is prayer?
Got a light? White or red? Do you have this
in a larger size? What grade are you in?
Which way to Pisa? Why did I ever say yes?
Who is my neighbor? Business or pleasure?
Is this seat free? What’s the local specialty?
Haven’t we discussed disgust? Why have you forsaken me?
Does my vote count? What kind of bird was that?
Do they speak English? Am I hurting you?
Spare some change? Which way’s north? Will you wait for me?
Think it’ll snow? What does she want for her birthday?
Where’s the nearest emergency exit? Will you take a check?
Is there stuff in my teeth? Faster or slower?
Have you seen my glasses? Do I need a reservation?
How do you spell that? Anything from the mini-bar?
What are you wearing? Does it help to fight back
when attacked by a mountain lion? Promise?
Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1650; Laurent de La Hire; oil on canvas; Musée Saint-Denis, Reims; from Web Gallery of Art
For a Son Who’s Just Been Jilted
What if one morning, during hurried shaving,
as water boils and weather’s foretold,
a foggy mirror said from its steam,
Take now your son, whom you have loved
dangerously close to idolatry,
and get thee into the land of Moriah,
which doesn’t appear on a map by the way,
and offer him there on an altar in flames?
How about that Abraham, who doesn’t demur
or kick a fuss but instead of squawking
saddles an ass and cuts some wood?
As for Isaac, not a peep
after Where’s the lamb, Dad?
but something must have passed between them
as he tied him up and laid him carefully
on the improvised altar they wrestled together
out of local limestone chunks,
something at least when the blade came close
to unwhiskered throat and Adam’s apple,
tappuah haaddam, stuck there always
and swallowing hard, though not yet
enlarged with a lowering voice
when the father of a multitude,
having committed to God will provide,
kissed his lips and said good-bye.
Stephen Cushman is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. His books of poetry include Blue Pajamas and Cussing Lesson (both from Louisiana State University Press), and he's working on his next, called Heart Island.
