N a p
a l
m H e
a l t
h S p
a : R
e p o
r t 2
0 0 7
DAVID COPE
The Gateway
1.
first night out:
space—
silence—
my heartbeat
outside my window, a truck roars
into the lot,
driver leaping into the street,
a real “king of the road,”
muddy boots,
four day beard—
thick fingers caress wrinkled brow.
he looks up into the dark
sky & breathes
deeply.
I close the drape—
too much sorrow to bear
tonight. it is
good
to be alone,
voiceless.
I have no way, numb even to sorrow.
2.
$39.99 a night
draped across the outer
wall—
mad traffic hurtles past, endless
lights, even at 3 a.m.
I have a corner room,
far from the truckers
partying down the hall, away
from the hollow-eyed woman
who posed near the ice machine,
looking long as I passed,
her hand at her hip, a cowgirl indeed.
a shower is good,
standing naked before the mirror:
sagging breasts & belly,
phallus curving to life at a touch—
torso flesh once tight,
turning a young girl’s eye.
I am
a grey-haired elder,
distended phallus now aching for a
plunging distant memory,
moonlight sighs echoed back from
the inner ear.
looking out my window in deep
night,
snow now howls across the
sky, through the parking lot’s lights—
lines of taillights, brakelights
all flash red at once.
3.
I will not speak of her now,
nor of what led to this impasse.
I am become the beast wandering at the edge.
tonight, out my snowy window
electric grid of the city, boxlike
transformers hum
endlessly, the roar of six-laned
downtown expressway
muffled in the wind.
in this flophouse, I’ve
found a quiet home for a time:
bed, light, TV, dead phone, yet
also a moment
staring out into the storm,
flashing waves of snow blasting
thru
crowns of Austrian pines lining the
lot,
my car outlined beneath.
4.
soup and salad at the mall, dinner
with Anne:
a scrawny black man limps thru the
dining suburbanites,
eyes bulging, saliva drooling
from rotted teeth, arm twisted—
I recognize Billy, ghost now of a friend once ripped from
his own life by his wife’s
crack habit.
now he is closer to the end,
incoherent,
shunned by the smug diners.
I offer him my change
& ask of his life, yet he mumbles, “thenk-yuh,
thenk-yuh,”
not recognizing me. Anne asks for his story.
it is a good sign.
5.
the white p.m. sky is lined with
steel-grey near the horizon,
spreading upward. wires hum outside my
window:
by day there is a small
field here, remnants of meadows & woods,
a few crooked crab apple trees, an
oak, brush that could be
honeysuckle, stands of
sumac—
the picture would be complete with
a doe delicately placing its feet,
working its way to the
horizon, stepping deliberately—
this fantasy a history, a rock
glyph in stone, a memory.
I lie abed, my dream wandering to
Sue, her silent movement
thru the empty rooms of the house,
sitting, reading on the couch,
she too looking up into this
strange sky, lost in sorrow,
perhaps moved by naked stems
trembling beyond her grasp.
her solitude, like mine, must be
complete.
6.
the father, scarecrow in a Marlboro
Man black stetson,
dumps suitcases into the back of
the rusted Chevy wagon,
one taillight covered with red
tape.
round as a turnip, the wife stows
gear, herds the children
into the seats.
they have been here two days,
yelling thru the walls,
children crying softly, moans of
terror in the background.
I’ve heard bathwater running at midnight, Spanish
lullabies.
I’ve seen the boy and girl wandering into the brush,
shouted back by the wife’s
shrill voice rising
like steam in a shrieking kettle.
their car rattles to life,
mufflerless,
its battered Texas plate crooked as they turn the corner,
the night coming, on the road at
last.
7.
near miss turnoff from freeway,
sleet in heavy traffic,
horns screaming around us all: shaken,
I head for my room thru the warren of the flophouse:
my neighbor, a black man
with salt & pepper beard,
sits in underpants, door wide open,
his bum leg
wrapped in knee brace,
workboots & soiled
pants scattered across the room,
TV blaring. seeing me pass, “hey
brother!” he shouts,
“brother! welcome home!”
8.
after workout: his face is unremarkable, his voice
a chatter of platitudes & biblical
quotes, yet
his penis hangs achingly low, its
huge barrel
a lovely pink, swollen even limp,
its head curving
thru its ellipse to the
cupid’s
bow where the lines,
lovely & delicate as the curves
in a lily’s flower,
join. others come & go,
yet this his flower
is a work of art, worthy
of lips & tongue, an icon
of tenderness for a heart
aching & charged.
9
my therapist, a stately woman,
observant eyes,
apologizes for jumping from
question to question,
asks me to be patient as we dive
into the pool
of my life. her office is a
quiet glen.
suddenly, I am a child, wandering
naked
in the woods of my childhood: Indian pipes,
mayflowers, the dark earth under
leaf litter,
the shimmer of the canopy, hint of
blue
beyond, my canoe awaits, & there
is the voyageur & Anishnabe
of my dream,
the mirror where that child face
looks back
without pain, without a thought,
mad to go.
10.
as I turned into the rush-hour
traffic,
the lost mother came to me in
memory:
when she thought
the children were finally asleep,
she wept softly into her pillow
in the late-night silence.
the eldest boy lay
still in his bunk & listened,
her tears punctuating the soft
splashing along the riverbank,
the far off scream
of a rabbit dying, the
screech owl’s cry.
above, the stars shone, a net
winking out over the long valley.
11.
59th birthday:
tonight
I must face
the woman I love
& have
loved, the woman
I have hurt.
I
must look into my son’s eyes
&
pray they haven’t gone stone hard
in this long night,
as mine once did. how
long a journey one must make
to come at last
to oneself, & see the patches
one makes of his life, those
he would never harm
crushed & in agony.
then,
too, my mother lies dying
& I have not seen her,
nor visited. she must lie abed
& now
may not even recall the day.
12
what is this cool
water, running over my ankles,
my toes sinking in sand?
I awake as from a dream.
it’s raining softly & rush
hour has begun.
the drops hang, diamonds
suspended
beneath transformers, wires, along
chainlink
topped with barbed wire,
& in apple branches which no longer bear fruit.
I am lonely, yet this is home.
what must it be to have a lover,
one who
welcomes a touch,
whose skin trembles
as mine does in dreamed memory,
when
skin brushes against skin,
casually?
the grey evening comes on,
as deeply moving as any postcard
dawn.
soon, I know, I will return home.
she & I will try again,
hold hands,
& while the sighs remain, the love is true:
this will be a gateway, & I
will pass thru.