USA

ellenbass@ellenbass.com

http://www.ellenbass.com/index.html

Photo by Joan Bobkoff

In Which a Deer Is Found in a Bubble Bath, Having Entered the House, Turned on the Faucet, Knocked Over the Bottle, and Stepped In--Not Necessarily in That Order
--from an account in the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Did he hear splashing
as he tossed his keys
on the counter, or was the deer

composed by then, on all fours, suds
swirling around its delicate
ankles like a person standing

in shallow surf? Or did it lower
itself like a sphinx, the line
of wet fur dark around its neck

trimmed with an Elizabethan
collar of foam? Perhaps,
when it felt the water

warm as sunshine, smelled the rose
scented froth, it leaned back,
resting the separate knobs

of its vertebrae on the plump
plastic cushion, relaxing
like a woman after a long

shift at work.
If so, did the man know
what to do? Did he pour two

gin and tonics, carry them
on the silver tray his mother
left him, along with a stack

of ecru towels, then sit
on the lid of the toilet
and ask about her day?

After Our Daughter's Wedding

While the remnants of cake
and half-empty champagne glasses
lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering
in the slanting light, we left the houseguests
and drove to Antonelli's pond.
On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.
A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.
"Do you feel like you've given her away?" you asked.
But no, it was that she made it
to here, that she didn't
drown in a well or die
of pneumonia or take the pills.
She wasn't crushed
under the mammoth wheels of a semi
on highway 17, wasn't found
lying in the alley
that night after rehearsal
when I got the time wrong.
It's animal. The egg
not eaten by a weasel. Turtles
crossing the beach, exposed
in the moonlight. And we
have so few to start with.
And that long gestation--
like carrying your soul out in front of you.
All those years of feeding
and watching. The vulnerable hollow
at the back of the neck. Never knowing
what could pick them off--a seagull
swooping down for a clam.
Our most basic imperative:
for them to survive.
And there's never been a moment
we could count on it.

Phone Therapy

I was relief, once, for a doctor on vacation
and got a call from a man on a window sill.
This was New York, a dozen stories up.
He was going to kill himself, he said.
I said everything I could think of.
And when nothing worked, when the guy
was still determined to slide out that window
and smash his delicate skull
on the indifferent sidewalk, "Do you think,"
I asked, "you could just postpone it
until Monday, when Dr. Lewis gets back?"

The cord that connected us--strung
under the dirty streets, the pizza parlors, taxis,
women in sneakers carrying their high heels,
drunks lying in piss that thick coiled wire
waited for the waves of sound.

In the silence I could feel the air slip
in and out of his lungs and the moment
when the motion reversed, like a goldfish
making the turn at the glass end of its tank.
I matched my breath to his, slid
into the water and swam with him.
"Okay," he agreed.

Insomnia

All over the world, people can't sleep.
In different time zones, they are lying awake,
bodies still, minds trudging along like child laborers.

They worry about bills. They worry
whether the shoes they just bought
are really too small. One's husband died,
her son left for college, and she doesn't
know how to program the VCR.

Another was beaten by her husband.
One is planning a getaway.
One holding stolen goods.

One's on the plaid couch in ICU. His daughter,
it turned out, actually does have a brain tumor
even though the doctor said they'd do the MRI just
to rule it out. The woman on the other couch
is snoring--which is strangely soothing--
evidence that people do sleep.

Some are lying on Charisma sheets.
Some in hammocks. Some in jail. Some
under bridges. One is at the North Pole
studying the impact of pollution.

A man in Massachusetts thinks about a lover
he once had in Dar Es Salaam and the jasmine
blossoms she strung along the shaft of a silver
pin, fastened in her hair at night. Coincidentally,
the lover, now in Rome, remembers
looking out the window over the sink
when she was washing dishes. He was reading
in a lawn chair and she thought how,
perhaps for the first time, she wasn't lonely.

Some are too cold. Some
too hot. Some hungry. Some in pain.
Some are in hotels listening to people having sex
in the next room. Some are crying.
One the cat woke up
and now she's worried about the rash
she noticed in the evening and wonders
if her daughter, who's afraid to swim,
should be pushed.

Some get up. Others stay in bed.
They eat Oreo's or drink wine--or both.
Many read. A few make intricate
Halloween costumes: a peacock
with eight real feathers in the tail.
Some check their email. They try
sleep tapes, hypnosis, drugs.
And listen to their clocks tick, smartly
as women in high heels.

Those who can, cling to their mates,
an ear pressed to those neighboring lungs like a
stethoscope, hoping to catch a ride
on the steady sleep breath of the other, to be carried
like a seed on the body of the one who is able.

Right now, in Japan, dawn is coming
and everyone who's been up all night
is relieved. They can stop trying.
In Guatemala, though, the insomniacs are just
getting started and have the whole
night ahead of them. It's like a wave
at the baseball stadium, hands
around the world.

So here's a prayer
for the wakeful, the souls who can't rest:
As you lie with eyes
open or closed, may something
comfort you--a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell
of crushed mint, Chopin's Nocturnes,
your child's birth, a kiss,
or even me--in my chilly kitchen
with my coat over my nightgown--thinking of you.

© All Copyright, Ellen Bass.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.