Len Krisak 

Victorian Poets In Hydrated Calcium Sulfate 

—Harriet Hosmer’s plaster-of-Paris at Radcliffe
 

  Two rights together, big as life

                                      And cast in plaster.

  Hosmer has saddled them with “Browning Hands,”

  Despite the pallid neo-classic skin.

              Did no one ever see the humor?

                          Not even Browning’s wife,

                          The day the sculptor cast her?

  Too late. That target of a title stands,

              And—oddly—won’t invite us in,

                          Like some half-hearted rumor.

              Life-size, yet met in Lilliput.

  How big were they,

  These Brownings? Almost monkey-palmed? Her wrist

  Bone braceleted in lace like Donne’s bright hair,

              His fingers slender as a boy’s,

                          This coupling could take root

                          In some peculiar way.

  Did either’s model ever make a fist?

              Or slap a cheek? Or press in prayer?

                          They seem a brace of toys.

              Two doll-size palms in some small clasp.

                                      The pair from which

  They’ve grown detached as couples sometimes get

  Barely suggest true faith; perhaps they will,

              But disembodied, seem to ache

                          To reach beyond this grasp.

                          Long love, however rich,

  May never come to grips with graves. Now let

              Me count the ways in which they still

                          Have yet to start to shake.

Black  Sheep

Against what they have spoken here—this clutch
Of black much given to discreet resort
To tissues and to kisses of support—
The first light sift of sandy gravel rattles,
Riding the lifted shovel’s back, then scatters—
Depending on the light or heavy touch
The mourners demonstrate, and on what grip
They’ve gotten—over coffin lid and sides.
Plain pine abjured, a Star of David shines,
Inlaid in polished rosewood earth soon hides.
A nephew cannot still a quivering lip;
Two nieces fail to fortify their spines.
And of one son, what can the grieving say,
Who see that he has come from far away,
And who, bereaved as he may be, came home
To take good care of everyone today?
He looks around once more: his brother Karl,
Living—some say—nearby, cannot be found,
Or moved, it would appear, to shovel loam
To cover up his father’s corpse. Perhaps
Some loan shark’s interest drove him underground;
Maybe he bought it, smacked out in Seattle.
Whatever. Nothing will explain this lapse
At last. The hungry grave fills up with marl.
The cars drive off, their tires thick with clay.

Three Attitudes

It’s not so much that he should be there, but
That anyone at all would want to haunt
This barren stage set of this underground.
Outwaiting trolley doors (when will they shut?),
He signals his intent to stay. Long, gaunt,
And young, he means to say he won’t be bound

Somewhere; that he is proud to stand disheveled,
Intent in his inspection of . . . the wall?
Oh, that’s it. There’s a map, and to his side,
A glazed, green poster that the “T” has leveled
At its patrons: “Tahiti—Heed the Call.”
Palms beckon like a waving travel guide.

As if he’d draw the map from smell alone,
Its legend and its color scheme transformed
To scent, he stands his ground so close, the nose
He’s wielding barely seems to be his own.
And in a stance to which he’s clearly warmed,
He roots there, striking a deliberate pose.

But then the trolley brakes release, their hiss
The signal that some curious charm is broken,
And like a top spun by a furious jerk,
He wheels to glare back at the half-cracked glass
As if some savage thing inside has woken.
He shoots the glassed-in paradise a smirk,

Threatening its blandishments with half a sneer
And one whole non-existent javelin. 
Then having mimed a man of menaces
With his imaginary brandished spear,
He freezes in the posture of that sin
For which God punished Cain in Genesis.

The train pulls out, abandoning this one-
Act playlet with its desolate platform stage,
Its doubtful climax, and its fearsome star,
Whose frozen bearing hints that it will run
No longer than his strength can match the rage
And terror burning in his repertoire.

Rilke:  Abishag

1.

She lay there. And the king’s subservients tied
Her childlike arms around the withered powers
Of him on whom she lay those sweet long hours.
His full years left her almost terrified.

And sometimes, when she heard the screech owl scream,
She’d turn and bury in his beard her face;
Then everything that was the nighttime came
In fear and longing, flocking to that place.

The stars were trembling with her, as a scent
Went searching through the bedroom where she lay.
The curtain stirred—a sign, but what was meant?
Her soft eyes sought the sign, turning that way,

But still she clung to him—that dark old man—
Untouched by what the night of nights can do.
She lay, upon the chilling he began,
As lightly as a soul—a virgin, too.

2.
 
The king sat pondering his empty day:
Pleasures missed; plans he’d meant to execute; 
The pampered dog with which he chose to play.
Then Abishag became an arch, and lay
Above his life of chaos and dismay—  
A lost life, like some coast of ill repute
Beneath the stars—her breasts, nursing him mute.

A woman-savvy man, he’d recognize,
Sometimes, her fixed and unkissed mouth, with eyes
That saw her through his shaggy brows, and found
The truth: her feelings’ green divining rod
Did not point down into his very ground.
He shivered. Then he listened like some hound
And sought himself inside his own last blood.