Charles Fishman is a Associate Editor of The Drunken Boat
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Country of Memory is published by www.uccellipress.com
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Author's Notes:
“The Get”:
A Jewish marriage is entered into by the issuance of a legal contract
between husband and wife and can be terminated only by the issuance
of a legal writ—a get—nullifying the original contract.
Charles Fishman
Paul Granger's Wound
You were the smallest, Paul —
the shortest, leanest, blondest, bravest
in our crew-and you have retreated less far
into darkness. I remember the day
that would etch your wound into my mind,
each catch and notch of memory glistening
with your blood. There was bright sunlight
and deep blue sky a blaze of white roses
and the dark gray haze of the new state road
the highway commission had bulldozed
into our lives.
You were wearing a round-necked polo shirt
and rolled-up jeans, a black leather belt
and high-backed sneakers. Zigzag stripes crested
on your chest in vertical waves that flowed
from neck to groin: a map of some watery terrain
no friend or parent could decipher. I remember
how the dark blue denim rippled over your thighs,
the lapping rivulets at your knees, the way
your gold-brown hair was parted. At our water hole
between parkway and woods, your clothes
dropped off
and you dove into the cold spring water all of us
knew to be sacred: a dark pool released
from the dictates of nature where we could breathe
without constraint without the harsh odor of fear
or desire stinging our nostrils. You dove
and we cheered, living for the moment in the rare oxygen
of the underlife you had plunged into feeling again
the icy water of time wash over us. And then you
broke the spell, bursting the surface as you held up
your hand, gashed open with that raw diagonal slash
that even now, five decades later,
wildly pulses—that wound written deep in your flesh
with the jagged edge of glass from a smashed
beer bottle—your ruined hand held up for us to witness
in all its bloody splendor your wound, Paul: the sky
ripped open just when we needed it whole.
With Jack in Egypt
Suddenly, I'm feeling old
even ancient. Sitting
in Jack's house, I listen
for the tapping of his fingers
on the 1937 Underwood
as he pops another benny
and breaks into song into
that jazz cantata he beat
from the drum of memory
from the pulse and passions
of friends from the dream
of connection.
It's certain that the gods
of writing visited Jack here
that his spirit lives here still
under the old scuffed floor
between the rusting coils
of the vintage electric stove
behind the half detached head-
board of Jack's old bed
and in the huge dynastic oak
that spreads astonishing wings
over each limb of this small
gray house.
I think of Jack tapping
so rapidly on those 46 keys
calling back with each bhikku
word his days with all the lunatic
greats of New York City San
Francisco Mexicali L.A.
his backwoods North Carolina
home his burials and dis-
interments the cold jolting slides
along California's astral coast
the dark midnight freights
that held his soul captive
And then in a down-
pour of icy January rain
I hear Jack tapping grace-
notes onto the scrolling
page: his white-magic
tantric spells and blitzing
ecstasies his prayers
for release from the dark
50s furies of America,
as if he were a spirit
who could not find
his Egypt.
And, suddenly, I remember
our South Bronx walk-up
earlier still than Jack's rise
to fame Wheeler Avenue:
wide asphalt street
of my boyhood lined
with leafy trees the light
burning down through curling
branches a soft blue flame
and the cool hardness
of the stone steps that led
back into the building.
And then I see my father
in his wool shirt
and baggy khakis
his black hair already whitening,
his strong fingers tapping
the cigarette case
in his pocket and my mother
leaning back in the sanctum
of her kitchen almost at ease
in that blue plastic seat,
taking a few quick puffs
and letting memory play.
I remember the Philco radio
that moaned all day and chanted
into the evening its green
and amber dials glowing
how the black-crowned heron sky
rose with a mystic fire that threw
bright sparks of history
into each room and how,
after bedtime, the closet door
loomed like an unextinguished hearth
like the sealed gate of a king's crypt
in Egypt.
I remember how the night
carried me beyond the city
lights into a desert garden
where I walked slowly-
a prince in flowing robes-
or sat, cross-legged,
in the cotton shroud
of a prophet and, once,
how I was set down
so gently amid ten thousand
splendors wearing the heavy
mask of a young pharaoh
doomed like Jack to die
to lie down golden but far
too early in the Blue Nile sleep
of eternity. And now, at last,
I recall how I woke to the sounds
of a new epoch to the rich
perfumes of life to a wild sunlit
music to ghost feluccas sailing:
with Jack in Egypt our fingers
grasping for the last loose sheaves
of papyrus floating past and pulling
pure pearl light from the moon.
The Get
1
The coldest December night, a billion stars frozen
in the sky, and we two together for this journey unto death . . .
No, it was not the cemetery of short lives we were visiting
nor the morgue of aborted dreams. We were gliding
toward the end of our marriage—such a cold ride!
2
Where did we arrive if not at the place of execution?
Had not a priest in white robes invited us? And his assistants
in the murder—were they not attentive and obedient?
And did the ceiling not open then, so that the white sky
was revealed?
3
I saw you tremble as you neared, saw the tears well up—
your eyes were streaming. You were unsaying our wedding vows,
and I was your gifted partner. I saw that your breast had been pierced
by a small, fresh-hewn gravestone. You were beautiful again
in your broken body and you held the world in your arms.
4
You held the world, and it was the record of your wounds.
Yes, I recall it now, my darling, how the sky shut down
and the stars vanished like wraiths. Then the rabbi pronounced us
dead: we were strangers on the planet, and the field we walked on
was stones.
5
How cold it was! How unyielding the blackness!
Yet we returned to the train together, our lips shut
as if with a seal of fire, and there was a deep snow falling
inside us. Who were we now, as you leaned once again
toward me, as I held you tight?
