“Is there something wrong?”
“I’m tired, I guess. There’s a cab.”
“Talk to me a second before we get into a car.”
She thought it was too difficult to explain. He would consider her a perfect fool of a possessive female if she told him. She didn’t want to walk that close to anyone casually. And was the man supposed to declare himself after knowing her for half an evening? And she didn’t even know her own desires; he was a stranger. Of one thing only she was certain. She could not expend herself in the casual.
“I’m married,” was all she said.
He studied her face. It was a temptation not to connect her loveliness with prosaic human problems. All her expressions were so beautiful, what did it matter what provoked them? Weren’t her lips perfect when they trembled? Then he remembered the pain he had sensed in her when she was sitting before the window. He shook his head and answered her.
“No, no, I don’t think you are.”
He hailed a taxi and before he could touch the handle of the door the cabbie leaned over and pushed it open. Times Square was a sudden invasion of light. Blue veins showed through the skin of their faces and hands and the bald head of the driver. They welcomed the comparative darkness of Seventh Avenue. They weren’t close enough yet to enjoy ugliness.
He told the cab to wait and took her to the elevator.
“I won’t ask you up,” Shell said without coyness.
“I know. We have time.”
“Thank you for saying that. I loved our walk.”
He dismissed the taxi and walked the hundred blocks himself. Trying not to step on cracks was the extent of any ordeal he entertained. He had retired into comfort, which is doing what you know you can do.
Shell got ready for bed quickly. When she was lying in the dark she suddenly realized that she hadn’t brushed her hair.
11
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
