slack wire, suggesting the way it might pitch in a strong wind,
the shadows that might throw.
The house is heavy, unattractive, sheathed in stucco, not native
to the region. My grandfather, who sold supplies to contractors,
was prone to modern materials, which he used with
wholesaler's enthusiasm. In 1921 he replaced the section of brick
sidewalk in front of his house with the broad smooth slab of poured
concrete, signing this improvement with a flourish, "W.F.
Gibson 1921". He believed in concrete and plywood
particularly. Seventy years later his signature remains, the slab
floating perfectly level and charmless between mossy stretches of
sweet uneven brick that knew the iron shoes of Yankee horses.
"Mama Jan. 1922" has come out to sweep the concrete with a
broom. Her boots are fastened with buttons requiring a special instrument.
Ice gorge again, the Ohio, 1917. The mechanism closes. A
torn clipping offers a 1957 DeSOTO FIREDOME, 4-door Sedan,
torqueflite radio, heater and power steering and brakes, new
w.s.w. premium tires. One owner. $1,595.
IV
He made it to the age of torqueflite radio
but not much past that, and never in that town.
That was mine to know, Main Street lined with
Rocket Eighty-eights,
the dimestore floored with wooden planks
pies under plastic in the Soda Shop,
and the mystery untold, the other thing,
sensed in the creaking of a sign after midnight
when nobody else was there.
In the talc-fine dust beneath the platform of the
Norfolk & Western
lay indian-head pennies undisturbed since
the dawn of man.
In the banks and courthouse, a fossil time
prevailed, limestone centuries.
When I went up to Toronto
in the draft,
my Local Board was there on Main Street,
above a store that bought and sold pistols.
I'd once traded that man a derringer for a
Walther P-38.
The pistols were in the window
behind an amber roller-blind
like sunglasses.
I was seventeen or so but basically I guess
you just had to be a white boy.
I'd hike out to a shale pit and run
ten dollars worth of 9mm
through it, so worn you hardly
had to pull the trigger.
Bored, tried shooting
down into a distant stream but
one of them came back at me
off a round of river rock
clipping walnut twigs from a branch
two feet above my head.
So that I remembered the mechanism.
V.
In the all night bus station
they sold scrambled eggs to state troopers
the long skinny clasp-knives called fruit knives
which were pearl handled watermelon-slicers
and hillbilly novelties in brown varnished wood
which were made in Japan.
First I'd be sent there at night only
if Mom's carton of Camels ran out,
but gradually I came to value
the submarine light, the alien reek
of the long human haul, the strangers
straight down from Port Authority
headed for Nashville, Memphis, Miami.
Sometimes the Sheriff watched them get off
making sure they got back on.
When the colored restroom
was no longer required
they knocked open the cinderblock
and extended the magazine rack
to new dimensions,
a cool fluorescent cave of dreams
smelling faintly and forever of disinfectant,
perhaps as well of the travelled fears
of those dark uncounted others who,
moving as though contours of hot iron,
were made thus to dance
or not to dance
as the law saw fit.
There it was that I was marked out as a writer,
having discovered in that alcove
copies of certain magazines
esoteric and precious, and, yes,
I knew then, knew utterly,
the deal done in my heart forever,
though how I knew not,
nor ever have.
Walking home
through all the streets unmoving
so quiet I could hear the timers of the traffic lights a block away:
the mechanism.
Nobody else, just the silence
spreading out
to where the long trucks groaned
on the highway
their vast brute souls in want.
VI.
There must have been a true last time
I saw the station but I don't remember
I remember the stiff black horsehide coat
gift in Tucson of a kid named Natkin
I remember the cold
I remember the Army duffle
that was lost and the black man in Buffalo
trying to sell me a fine diamond ring,
and in the coffee shop in Washington
I'd eavesdropped on a man wearing a black tie
embroidered with red roses
that I have looked for ever since.
They must have asked me something
at the border
I was admitted
somehow
and behind me swung the stamped tin shutter
across the very sky
and I went free
to find myself
mazed in Victorian brick
amid sweet tea with milk
and smoke from a cigarette called a Black Cat
and every unknown brand of chocolate
and girls with blunt-cut bangs
not even Americans
looking down from high narrow windows
on the melting snow
of the city undreamed
and on the revealed grace
of the mechanism,
no round trip.
They tore down the bus station
there's chainlink there
no buses stop at all
and I'm walking through Chiyoda-ku
in a typhoon
the fine rain horizontal
umbrella everted in the storm's Pacific breath
tonight red lanterns are battered,
laughing,
in the mechanism.