Fuel (4 page)

The 2
A.M
. whistle of the long train

stretches out the thread between days,

pins it in a crack between its teeth and pulls

so the people in white beds by the flour mill

become the wheat

unground in the sacks

and the old fish with one whisker

flips over in the river grown too thin.

We need the rain, the iron bar of the track,

the backside of heat. Perfect V-ripple eleven ducklings

cast swimming toward the shore for bread.

As the boys who will not lift their heads

to look anyone in the eye mark the name of their pack

on the bridge with the stink of squared-off letters,

Señora Esquivel who lives alone

remembers her underwear draped on the line.

It will not rain tonight, has not rained in 90 nights.

Cantaloupe cracks on the inside,

jagged fissures in orange flesh.

When the cat blinks to see the sneaky possum

licking his water dish dry,

he thinks, and thinks, Tomorrow I'll get him.

Then sleeps. Inside the small breeze

lifting the fringe of the train's held tone

Hondo, Sabinal, Uvalde, Del Rio, and far off,

glittering as Oz, El Paso rising

from its corner, holding the giant state in place

as a dozing conductor grips his swatch of tickets firmly

in a car streaking the thirsty land.

From far away

from the faraway inside each life

the island a minor disruption

all night shearing off corners

scattering the palm's dried wings

as wind claims the whole sky

telling the wild story

you who arranged your desks

papers in the right-

and left-hand corners

bow down

*

All day the men took air into their bodies

and traded it back again

the men and women took air into their bodies

growing great parachutes over their heads

and the children gulping whole lungfuls

saying they weren't hungry

breathed the same air

as an old neighbor dutifully sweeping his leaves

into a packet

tied with rope

at the top of the mountain

we were breathing air that used to drift

around the bottom of the mountain

resting in a forest

breathing the hush and rustle of bamboo

I wanted to trade something larger

than what I had taken

*

Nothing worse for the person

who can't sleep

than to lie beside

heavy sleepers

first you envy

then worry about them

each hair in their nostrils

growing more delicate

each inhalation a small balcony

from which you wave good-bye

to your lives passing

in the thousand streets

beyond reach

Idaho potatoes have made it to Honolulu.

Scores of automobiles, legions of shirts,

rice steamers, bicycles,

as well as unlikely accessories—

bowling pin salt- and pepper-shakers,

glittering eye shadow,

chocolate-covered cherries,

washed up on these shores.

Outlandish as it seems, all these

preceded us.

The leaves of Eucalyptus robusta

try not to notice it.

Wild purple orchid,

sleek bark of koa,

stand clear. What's here

may or may not belong here.

I press my extra eyes

into the mist over the valley,

forgetting my small book of stamps

and the ten thousand travelers

eating breakfast,

guarding the word
invisible
,

sweet breath of every tree.

I ride the waves of vowels, saying

in my own flat language,

I'll go soon. And, don't remember me.

On the famous beach in Honolulu a small Japanese girl cried and cried and cried. She stood stiff-legged, poking her feet into the sand. Her parents kneeled, whispered, cajoled. Then they tried walking away. They had a baby in their arms. They strolled surprisingly far down the beach, but never took their eyes off her. She raised the volume on her crying, staring straight out to sea. Her pink bathing suit, its ruffled rump. Our eyes followed the silver planes rising off the runway. I loved every plane I was not on. I loved the wailing girl who saw no one else on that beach but herself, whose throat worked hard to find the biggest, saddest sound. After her parents gave up and dragged her still screaming down the beach, we went and sat by the poked-in place her feet had made and funneled up the billion particles into a mound.

The shape of talk would sag

but the birds be brighter than ever

O I needed the birds worse & worse as I got older

as if some crack had opened in the human scheme of things

& only birds with their sharp morning notes

had the sense for any new day

The people went round & round

in the old arenas

dragging their sacks

of troubles & stones & jaggedy love

I could not help them

I was one of them

the people pitched advice

in its flat hat back & forth

across the table

But the birds so far above us

hardly complete sentences

just fragments & dashes

the birds who had seen the towns

grow up & topple

who caught the changing wind

before anyone on the ground did

who left for Mexico when we were not

paying attention

what could they tell us

about lives in heavy bodies

what could they tell us

about being

caught?

All day a boy plunges his hands into his pockets.

Tickets, tape, crystallized stones, a two-dollar bill.

He will not wear pants without pockets.

It is a point of honor.

He sleeps as deeply as the crackle of the burning log,

the breath of the far-flung sea.

Where are you, world? Don't do anything

while I'm not paying attention.

My grandmother mentioned only once how the piano teacher she had as a girl leaned over her too closely at the keys. His damp lips grazed her cheek or maybe they touched her mouth for a minute. My grandmother never felt comfortable with the piano after that. I think a little more music could have helped her life. I played her piano sometimes. Dust rose in little clouds from the cracks between the keys. A few keys had lost their voices. My grandmother told me some things but not enough. We had a sweetness between us. What happened to the piano teacher? His lips parting ever so slightly over middle C, eyes pinned to the ripe notes on the sheet . . . could he help it what they reminded him of? Here I am trying to gather her lost kisses from the air. They're drifting just outside the tune.