Poetry Magazine, Robert Sward, February 2002

Poetry Magazine

Robert Sward

USA

GOD’S PODIATRIST

Corns, calluses, pain
in the joints of my toes.
Masked man in the half light,
starched white jacket and pants,
shaking his head.
“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Re-fitting the supports.
What is it with you?” he asks,
“Why don’t you respond?
I’ve never seen such feet.
With a word, the world came into being,” he murmurs,
cigarette in hand.
“With you, with arch supports even
there are these feet that go nowhere.
Anyway, there’s just one person,
God, God’s body,” he says.

“God has a body?” I ask.

“Of course he has a body, and feet.

“Feet?”

“Feet, of course feet.
You know he’s not one to ask for help.”
Throws me my shoes. “You’re finished.”

“Help?” I ask.

“It’s the least I can do,” he says.

“You’re a podiatrist for God?” I ask.

“Varicose veins.
The aroma of infinity.
feet sparking, feet an endless ocean,
feet made of music.
Of course I have to sort out foot from hallucination.
You can’t treat a halo.
Don’t look at me like that.
You’re the one who doesn’t respond to treatment.
God has feet like anyone else. You know it and I know it.

“I am that I am,” I say.

“Says you,” says my father.
“He is that he is and I’m his podiatrist.
What a son,” he says.

ARCH SUPPORTS--THE FITTING

Greets me in the waiting room,
father with waxed,
five-eyelet shoes;
son, too, with spit-shine, five-eyelet shoes.
This is how I was brought up. I do it
to show respect.
Value your feet.

“Okay, un-sock those feet of yours,” he says,
“let’s see the felons.”
I unlace my Florsheims: moist feet emerging
from their cave of leather.
Father holds up arch supports.
Curved knife in hand, he shakes his head
as he trims just so.

“Remind me. Why do I need these things?” I ask.

“Weak ankles and spine,” he says. “Poor posture.
Your feet are fine.
Truth is, you should be more like your feet.
Robust, healthy feet.
Take a lesson from your feet,” he says.
“Feet appreciate
custom made.
No Dr. Scholl’s for these feet.”

Slips in the inserts.
Arch support like a shoe
inside a shoe,
leather inside leather.

“Every step I take you’re going to be there,” I say.

“Every step,” he says, “every step of the way.”

SON OF THE COMMANDMENT

Chicago

“So, twelve years old! Soon you’ll be bar mitzvah,
a mensh, a human being. Yes,
a human being, you. ‘Today I am a man,’ you’ll say.
Let’s see what you know:
The serpent in the Bible, what language does he speak?

“What’s wrong with you? He speaks Hebrew. Same as God.
Same as Abraham and Isaac.
Same as Jesus.
Who else speaks Hebrew?

“Adam and Eve. Noah, too, and the animals:
the giraffe, the kangaroo, the lion.
Hebrew.
Hebrew.
Soon you’ll speak Hebrew.
Yes, and you’ll read it too. Apostate!

“You’re going to Hebrew School.

“Why? So you can speak to God in His own language.
Lesson One: Bar means son, mitzvah means commandment.
Bar mitzvah: Son of the commandment.
Commandment, mitzvah: What God gave to Moses.

“Lesson Two: When did Jews get souls?

“Souls they got when they got Torah.
Torah. Torah is Commandments.
Torah is soul.

“So learn, bar mitzvah boy! Read. Learn the blessing.
Do it right and you’ll see
the letters fly up to heaven.

“Learn. Yes. There’s money
in puberty,
money in learning. Books, money, fountain
pens... Always remember: learning is the best merchandise.

“Lesson Three: Daven means pray. You rock back and forth
like the rabbi,
and pray. In Hebrew.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
But it has to be in Hebrew.
And you can’t mispronounce:
And no vowels to make it easy.”

1. ROSICRUCIAN IN THE BASEMENT

i.
“What’s to explain?” he asks.
He’s a closet meditator. Rosicrucian in the basement.
In my father’s eyes: dream.
“There are two worlds,” he says,
liquid-filled crystal flask
and yellow glass egg
on the altar.
He’s the “professional man” --
so she calls him, my stepmother.
That, and “the Doctor”:
“The Doctor will see you now,” she says,
working as his receptionist.
He’s podiatrist--foot surgery a specialty--
on Chicago’s North Side.
Russian-born Orthodox Jew
with zaftig Polish wife, posh silvery white starlet
Hilton Hotel hostess.

ii.
This is his secret.
This is where he goes when he’s not making money.
The way to the other world is into the basement
and he can’t live without this other world.
“If he has to, he has to,” my stepmother shrugs.
Keeps door locked when he’s not down there.
Keeps the door locked when he is.
“Two nuts in the mini-bar,” she mutters, banging pots
in the kitchen upstairs.
Anyway, she needs to protect the family.
“Jew overboard,” she yells, banging dishes.
“Peasant!” he yells back.

iii.
“There are two worlds,” he says lighting incense, “the seen
and the unseen, and she doesn’t understand.
This is my treasure,” he says,
lead cooking in an iron pan,
liquid darkness and some gold.
“Son, there are three souls: one, the Supernal;
two, the concealed
female soul, soul like glue...
holds it all together...”
“And the third?” I ask.
We stand there: “I can’t recall.”
He begins to chant and wave incense.
No tallis, no yarmulke,
just knotty pine walls and mini-bar
size of a ouija board,
a little schnapps and shot glasses
on the lower shelf,
and I’m no help.
Just back from seven thousand dollar trip,
four weeks with Swami Muktananda,
thinking
Now there’s someone who knew how to convert
the soul’s longing into gold.
Father, my father: he has this emerald tablet
with a single word written on it
and an arrow pointing.

2. JESUS

“What is it with the cross? You believe in Jesus, dad?”
“What?”
“Are you still a Jew?”
He turns away.
“Damnit, it’s not a religion, verstehst?”
Brings fist down on the altar.
“We seek the perfection of metals,” he says,
re-lighting stove,
“salvation by smelting.”

“But what’s the point?” I ask.

“The point? Internal alchemy, shmegegge. Rosa mystica,” he shouts.
Meat into spirit, darkness into light.”

Seated now, seated on bar stools.
Flickering candle in a windowless room.
Visible and invisible. Face of my father
in the other world.
I see him, see him in me
my rosy cross
podiatrist father.
“I’m making no secret of this secret,” he says,
turning to the altar.
“Tell me, tell me how to pray.”
“Burst,” he says, “burst like a star.”

3. ROSY CROSS FATHER

Mother:
“Yes, he still believes. Imagine--
American Jews,
when they die,
roll underground for three days
to reach the Holy Land.
He believes that.”

We’re standing at the Rosicrucian mini-bar listening,
father
with thick, dark-rimmed glasses
blue-denim shirt,
bristly white mustache,
and dome forehead.

“Your stepmother’s on the phone with her sister,” he says.

“He thinks he can look into the invisible,”
she says from above.
“He thinks he can peek into the other world,
like God’s out there waiting for him...
Meshugge!”

She starts the dishwasher.

“As above, so below,” he says.
“I’m not so sure,” I say.
“Listen, everyone’s got some stink,” he says,
grabbing my arm,
“you think you’re immune?”
I shake my head.

“To look for God is to find Him, “ he says.
“If God lived on earth,” she says, “people would knock out
all His windows.”
“Kibbitzer,” he yells back. “Gottenyu! Shiksa brain!”

Father turns to his “apparatus,”
“visual scriptures,” he calls them,
tinctures and elixirs,
the silvery dark and the silvery white.

“We of the here-and-now, pay our respects
to the invisible.
Your soul is a soul,” he says, turning to me,
“but body is a soul, too. As the poet says,
‘we are the bees of the golden hive of the invisible.’”
“What poet, Dad?”
“The poet! Goddamnit, the poet,” he yells.

He’s seventy-one, paler these days, showing more forehead,
thinning down.

“We live in darkness and it looks like light.
Now listen to me: I’m unhooking from the world, understand?
Everything is a covering,
contains its opposite.
The demonic is rooted in the divine.
Son, you’re an Outside,” he says,
“waiting for an Inside.
but I want you to know...”
“Know what, Dad?”
“I’m gonna keep a place for you in the other world.”