Let it Enfold You

 

                                            

Either peace or happiness,

let it enfold you

When I was a young girl

I felt these things were

dumb, unsophisticated.

I had bad blood, a twisted

mind, a precarious

upbringing

I was hard as granite, I 

leered at the

sun.

I trusted no woman and

especially no

man.

I was living a hell in

amm rooms, I broke

things, smashed things,

walked through glass,

cursed.

I challenged evrything,

was continually being

evicted , jailed , in and 

out of fights, in and out

of my mind.

men were something

to screw and rail

at , I had no female

friends.

I changed jobs and

cities, I hated holidays,

babies, history,

newspapers, museums,

grandmothers,

marriage, movies,

spiders, garbagemen,

english accents, spain,

france, italy, walnuts and

the colos

orange.

algebra angred me,

opera sickened me,

charlie chaplin was a

fake

and flowers were for

pansies.

peace and happiness to me

were signs of 

inferiority,

tenants of the weak

and

addled

mind.

but as I went on with

my alley fights,

my suicidal years,

my passage through

any number of

women-it gradually

began to occur to 

me

that I wasn't different

from the

others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome

with hatred,

glossed over with petty

grievances,

the men I fought in

alleys had hearts of stone.

everybody was nudging,

inching, cheating for

some insignificant

advantage,

the lie was the

weapon and the

plot was 

empty,

darkness was the

dictator.

cautiously, I allowed

myself to feel good

at times.

I found moments of

peace in cheap

rooms

just staring at the

knobs of some

dresser

or listening to the

rain in the

dark.

the less I needed

the better I

felt.

maybe the other life had worn me

down.

I no longer found

glamour

in topping somebody

in conversation.

or in mounting the

body of some poor

drunken female

whose life had

slipped away into

sorrow.

I could never accept

life as it was,

i could never gobble

down all its

poisons

but there were parts,

tenuous magic parts

open for the

asking.

I re formulated

I don't know when,

date, time, all

that 

but the change

occured.

something in me

relaxed, smoothed

out.

i no longer had to

prove that I was a

man,

I didn't have to prove

anything.

I began to see things:

coffee cups lined up

behind a counter in a

cafe.

or a dog walking along

a sidewalk.

or the way the mouse

on my dresser top

stopped there

with its body,

its ears,

its nose,

it was fixed,

a bit of life

caught within itself

and ts eyes looked 

at me

and they were

beautiful.

then-it was

gone.

I began to feel good,

I began to feel good

in the worst situations

and there were plenty 

of those.

like say, the boss

behind his desk,

he is going to have

to fire me.

I've missed too many

days.

he is dressed in a

suit, necktie, glasses,

he says,' I am going

to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell

him.

He must do what he

must do, he has a 

wife, a house, children,

expenses , most probably

a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him

he is caught.

I walk  onto the blazing

sunshine.

the whole day is

mine

temporarily,

anyhow.

(the whole world is at the

throat of the world,

everybody feels angry,

short-changed, cheated,

everybody is despondent,

disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of

peace, tattered shards of

happiness.

I embraced that stuff

like the hottest number,

like high heels, breasts,

singing, the

works.

(don't get me wrong,

there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism

that overlooks all

basic problems just for 

the sake of

itself-

this is a shield and a

sickness.)

The knife got near my

throat again

I almost turned on the 

gas

again

but when the good 

moments arrievd 

again

I didn't fight them off

like an lley 

adversary.

I let them take me,

I luxuriated in them,

I made them welcome

home.

I even looked into

the mirror

once having thought

myself to be

ugly,

I now liked what

I saw,almost

handsome, yes,

a bit ripped and 

ragged,

scares, lumps,

odd turns,

but all in all,

not all in all

not too bad,

almost handsome,

better at least than

some of those movies

star faces

like the cheeks of

a baby's

butt.

and finally I discovered

real feelings of

others,

unheralded,

like lately,

like this morning,

as I was leaving,

for the track,

I saw my wife in bed,

just the 

shape of 

her head there

(not forgetting

centuries of the living

and the dead and 

the dying,

the pyramids,

Mozart dead

but his music still

there in the

room, weeds growing,

the earth turning,

the tote board waiting for 

me)

I saw the shape of my 

wife's head,

she so still,

I ached for her life,

just being there

under the

covers.

I kissed her in the

forehead,

got down the stairway,

got outside,

got into my marvelous

car,

fixed the seatbelt,

backed out the

drive.

feeling warm to 

the fingertips,

down to my

foot on the gas

pedal,

I entered the world

once

more,

drove down the 

hill

past the houses

full and empty

of people,

I saw the mailman,

honked,

he waved

back 

at me.