Marilyn Bates
Caught in this knot of wind and calm, this March day,
you come in on the red eye, California baywind
still in your hair, sunglasses tipped against your nose,
your sandals making tracks across the snow, a bottle of merlot
in the wrinkled airline bag, cell phone cocked in your pocket.
I'm scalding fresh fennel to pour over perch--your favorite.
Anything to lure you back to the sleet of Pittsburgh streets,
back home to the thrum of the job you left
for your stake in the new gold rush.
There's no succor in your photos of the ocean's silver skin,
rosemary bouquets around the Embarcadero,
shots of little lizards drinking in arroyos gorged with rain,
your prattle about the salad of goat cheese and raddicchio you ate
in Carmel, where that cowboy mayor made his own fortune.
I try to make you understand a mother's connection to a son,
but you're gone now, into the volley of gold rush heirs,
into the glitter of microchips, stock options surging the Dow,
IPOs shooting out like casino coins, instant millionaires
giving up the gun, buying up vineyards.
Gone into the thing-world that more money can buy--
a tiny apartment with a view of the bay, a kitchen too small
for gourmet dishes, a dining alcove for a workplace,
too prim for tin snips and soldering irons,
walls too thin for your stored guitar.
Already your photo pales on the refrigerator door. In it
you are six, holding onto my hand, thumb thrust
into your belt, standing in the same bright light
where I see you now--a glass of merlot in hand
toasting grapevines strung upon the wires
like tau crosses, in this new religion of the Nasdaq.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Marilyn Bates