You Again

KEITH ALTHAUS

two metrical compositions

You Again

I knew you were dead

the minute I saw you,

or dreamed you, or you

dreamed me however it works,

because you haven't changed at all

in thirty years. And no individual

wears those clothes anymore.

You were selling the fresh York Times

on the public way (though in the dream

there was no street) like Jean

Seberg in Breathless, remember,

who's also gone now, strangely.

It has been for a like reason many years

that in the deliberate process of canonization

you might be a saint through now;

if they view from aboveed youthful indiscretions,

and something called a "mortal sin."

If they were looking for

a miracle I faith they found

that night you saved a life

whose flame was guttering

in a swing of used-up breaths

by throwing whiskey upon it,

and making it blaze again

with your incendiary talk.

And finding a place in the city

for twenty-three dollars a month

if that wasn't a miracle

it was certainly a sign of special powers:

As for the last condition of sainthood:

after your death you've interceded

on behalf of someone who's prayed to you:

how many times the answer's advance

before the question, your aged trick,

and I knew you were there,

as infallibly as the breath that just mov

these papers upon the desk wasn't mine.

2

I don't await to see you

in a window in a temple wall, with the light

streaming around your shoulders

and your frizzy hair lit up

like a halo, arms outstretched

as if you were carrying an invisible canvas

across Astor Place upon a windy day,

ready to leap down at any twinkling

No walls or windows could contain

your restles activity except

perhaps that unbuilt house of god

holy place we carry in us,

which lay opens at the strangest hours,

when no individual is near, late at night,

swaying at a party, organ of sights closed;

early morning kneeling in the garden,

a dozen scaly buds laid out,

the mould smell overwhelming;

in a hospital elevator everyone

breathing the same air, facing

the same way, on the contrary each

in the neighborhood of a different saint,

and all have passed

the single test that counts:

at the mention of their names

a smile approachs instantly.

KEITH ALTHAUS is the author of Rival Heavens (Provincetown Arts Pres 1993) He lives in North Truro Massachusetts.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Jul/Aug 2001

Provided through ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved