Those Who Love the Gods, Maria, Drive Themselves Mad

angular dancer in clumsy shoes
at the pivot of arithmetical distances
akimbo
dance for us on King Street
wave the rain over for a cigarette

there is a ritual for everything, she says
thing going into things
thing that can't be undone
the secret
of iron gates and sewer hatches
the pool player who tried to make
unbreakable circles around her
reading Camus to the courtroom
in her own defense
how it takes forever
to move her few possessions
one irate landlord further

I recall her saying
"there used to be a car here
there was a car!" by the curb
in the evenings
she would walk her path
back and forth
"for 11 years I haven't
killed myself"
and
"maybe I should nap
until I'm tired"

woman observing the war
from distance
dredging blackened images
of arms and legs from her hair
woman fear made
a genius
taken hard into reason

in a closet big as an apartment
a worn white blouse
crumpled on the wooden floor
last note of her dance struck
on a plate metal gong
covert tragedy of fingers touching
no one
there, not even forever

the final hysteria is not ours
I think, Maria
but belongs to those for whom
necessity and fact
are great twined tragedies
with us sinking

the fires are lit
we have have always loved
certain stories
in the red and dying light

legal mornings, marble afternoons
starry nights
running vast circles around us
(1987-88)