Forrest Gander

Someone has been undressing
in my room. She works
over my body at night
with long-nailed fingers.

I wake with breath on my lips,
a sweating hide. Things irrevocable,

for me the double shits of the troubled.

Next door my neighbor is also
showering, cold water
in the semi-light.

Last week he told me he kicked a can
from 3rd St. at night
to 22nd before he felt
stupid.
By the time he fell in bed
he was obsessing
about the can. He yanked his pants on
and a ski jacket, went out
to find a kick the can
the fuck home. But he walked
about an hour, stopped
at a donut place and bought a regular coffee.

On weekends I work for a quadriplegic
whose wife is beautiful.
When I sleep in the next room
they make love, quiet as heat lightning.

The 3 of us visited two men
who own the vineyard. They brought out
bottles without labels like the Iroquois
who never put faces on their dolls.
The man I work for knows
about wine. I brought the glass
to his lips.
There were empty bottles.
It was mid afternoon.

The woman stood up stretching,

sweat transparentized parts of her blouse.
She said Is that a pool? The owner
answered yes. She asked Is it
all right to take a swim,
(he said I’ll get you a towel)
I didn’t bring a suit.
Her husband looked from his wheelchair.
The man came with a white towel.
She lifted the latch and closed the gate
behind. Everyone sat back down.
After a minute we heard her body
enter the water. The husband
mentioned fume blanc, the owner told why
he doesn’t grow that grape.
We reached for our glasses

waylaid by the long dark hair
the arc of her kicking
feet behind the thin wood slats.

That night I rubbed her back
in the living room across from her husband,
his chair. Dreaming like he was.
My hands, his.

I watched the late show, An officer And A Gentleman,
which is a movie about factory workers
not having a dream
except to put-out when they are shat on
until a man dressed in white
carries one of them
away. Then everyone claps they are so happy.

Earlier in the day
crack men in Florida
taught soldiers flown from Honduras
tricks Americans know,
how to cripple what they touch.
Kurosawa tells it:
the bad sleep well.

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Also from Forrest Gander in Phoebe 13.1&2, “The Plot”

Forrest Gander, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and grew up in Virginia. Among his most recent books are the novel The Trace, the poems Eiko & Koma, and two anthologies: Panic Cure: Poetry from Spain for the 21st Century and Pinholes in the Night: Essential Poems from Latin America. Gander’s book Core Samples from the World, a meditation on the ways we are revised and translated in encounters with the foreign, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He’s the A.K. Seaver Professor of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University.