Not that I’ve been there.
But the word landed. I think
and now and again I reverse
the casual response to Spain.
I won’t mention it,
not in Boston, though
King Carlos visited the Kennedy
Library today.
What does the poem erupt?
Nothing.
Only the idea of place—
and it doesn’t erupt enough
Or it would reflect
the shadows of your feet
moving in tandem
down the alley
and (of course)
a line of doors
one after two after
in pursuit of the spring air.
And also, you would presume,
the spring cars,
the defeated face
the water makes
when you drive past it.
But the face
is less endurable
than the salty texture
of the air—
not on the tongue
but
in a vibration almost
its avian tendency
to penetrate the brow
and enjoy the carousel
of blood
we so stupidly conceive
as our blood
and not the blood
of the car.
By now I’m sure you’ve
noticed: the resonance of—
the nameless voyage of,
has it come to you!—
sitting in the mouth, only sitting,
that resonance without a name.
Here I should continue to explain
the cavalcade
but an exegesis
if you do
want to experience movement
is entirely
out of balance.
What I mean to say
without saying it
is the commonality
of discourse; that phrase
commonality of discourse
falls slightly short of abruption
but is
as I see it flicker
across your face
slightly more than a sudden stop.
And perhaps I should have said
banality of discourse
instead.
It isn’t the movement of the car
I’m trying to describe.
It’s something I’ve forgotten to say
and to remember that I forgot it
I almost named it Barcelona.
As you see though, I can’t name it Barcelona.
I might as well call it: the oval light.
that arches across the psychotic water.
—Not that water can be psychotic!
Water is nothing.
I will call it
the oval light
that arches over the water.
Note what I deleted.
I did the same with my palm.
I did the same with a particular
pasture in Northern Arkansas.
And I know you’re asking
Which palm? What pasture?
The clear palm whereon
the new cologne perches.
The pasture still witness
to our catafalque.
Is it possible
that this path
was subservient
to a final purpose?
To a memory?
I thought so
since the cliffs on that countryside
left me
with such a distinct recollection:
the rocks
their impervious vertical nature
the Eastern firmament the storm
was moving into
and the Western
where it left—
suddenly—the orange sun.
This sculptured hodgepodge
made me think
at first
that yes
the purpose of the arterial
gesture of the poem
was to bring us to that
finality, recollecting
the sound of our embrace.
But to think that I almost saw
a purpose—
to realize that
we almost created one together
drives me farther away
from that time.
I am still at a desk
and the task becomes mundane
in its pure taskness.
I’d prefer to say your name
but even that is farther from the truth
than to call you Barcelona.
You see, we cannot pin it down
and it’s safer to say
the experience never existed
that it never will—
not to damn it
with fire but to dismiss it safely
with water. Do you remember
what I said? I said
the defeated face / the water makes / when you drive past it.
You and I know
the water’s face isn’t defeated
that I should have said—simply—
the face the water makes
the face the water makes