after Paul Cezanne, “Still Life with Skull”

Pears, peaches, and apricots, the blushing orange-red,
the trendy coral now available everywhere

that you see on capris and purses. The soft blush
of the peach somebody has bit into, the hesitancy

of the fruit, the perfect roundness. Next to the fruit,
the skull, that reminds you. Today, at Victoria’s Secret,

shopping for bathing suits, you ask a woman for help.
A good shrink, she listens to your fears about vacationing

at the beach with your in-laws and she helps you find bikinis,
rummages in a bin for matching string bottoms.

The light in the fitting room dark like the background
in Cezanne’s painting. You try on a hot pink top

that she says will show off your tan. Each bathing suit:
frenzied self-loathing. It might be easier to go to heaven

than fit into one of them, the skimpy bit, the bombshell
push-up halter, the high-leg string itsy, the flirt bandeau,

the tassel triangle top. The edgy stilettoes of the woman
who listens, but declines your 20% off coupon.

Each day I walk to the creek
knowing I long ago gave up my mother’s heaven.

My family’s reunion is taking place
fifty miles away
—a pig sliced open in honor

of an uncle, home from saving the world.

I’m certain the bruise on my knee
is a sunset. Why didn’t I say this sooner—
The wasp behind my head is like the ladder in a nightmare.
The sun slices my yard toward the direction of spite.
Each day I hope daisies rise.

Even the dog stands there, eyeing the late afternoon.

I’m looking for a branch from which to hang
the laundry or maybe a cliff from which to throw
the entire basket of years.

Pretend we’re brown horses
with white like this

on our noses. Pretend
the wind catches only just

our tails behind us. Pretend we’re sister
& brother & we

love one another, & for lunch
there’s grass & crackers

& in the field all the flowers—
red, yellow, & there are blue ones, too,

but don’t eat those! They’re poison.
Pretend we smell wolves.

Pretend we are wolves,
& when we howl

all the horses run, except the littlest one,
so we lick her on her white nose,

& we are all friends on a mountain
chewing flowers.

But then I die, & like this
with leaves & sticks you bury me, & you

are so, so sad, & so am I, & here come
the horses with their big hooves

to pound the dirt down (I have a house now
underground). Do you

miss me? Down here I get
so hungry. Pretend bring me

one more mouthful of flowers.

She was seated at the other end of the table,
but to be polite—or to gain her attention—
I asked what she hoped to study. I’d heard

she was smart. And her lycée taught English.
And our host, a writer in his forties,
was American, and had been coaching her.

But she wouldn’t reply—mumbled, stuttered,
sulked. Pretty, I thought. A forehead
like a dolphin’s, widely-spaced pale eyes

and wispy blond hair, gathered quickly
with a clip, the way the young can look good
wholly by accident. Just fifteen,

her brain still molting, laying down
thought pathways, shedding neurons, weak
on frontal lobe judgment. So when the host

snapped—Je me fâche—for a moment
I was afraid he was threatening to send her
to her room—a burdened parent—but

we knew they were lovers. Embarrassing
how he shamed her. I was being so nice,
“just taking an interest.” But I know I wasn’t.

A guest seated next to me attempted to explain.
An expatriate, he never liked to speak French
with his Parisian wife around. “With some people

you fear their body language.” I tried to see
my purchase xanax valium body language. The examining schoolmaster.
The frightened waif who can’t answer. The host

both lover and father, miserably, sublimely conflicted,
driving her to a tantrum in rapid French. What
did she say? When we parted in the parking field

her cheek brushed mine—the obligatory double kiss—
and I felt how round and tender her face was, and couldn’t
believe I’d provoked her. I wanted to draw her near

without assaulting her, the way I’m close
to my students—I, with my solicitude, and they
with their youthful beauty. The way the moon

is beautiful not because I’d like to breach its airless
remoteness, but because I’d like to watch it
in its silver grace like a little bowl levitating

above the earth and its disciplinary gravity.
Unless it was more common than that. The jealousy
of a man spying on another man’s lover,

a desire, as I pulled away, to be the one left
in the field, leaning on a car beside her,
the quarrel over, the night sky glittering.

I have wine in my hand and want wine.
I’m surprised by the want
To know better. I know
Worse and still regard pleasure
As fetching and necessary, though difficult
On certain disciplines. I have
Wine and uncertain principles
Only for fun fundamentals, for auditions
With another I might get to laugh with me
And still help sweep away the leftovers.
Who’s given up on forgiving forgiveness?
The little house peeling and stained.
Its roof holds against midnight thunderstorms.
Though I wince at the ceiling, the dead there
Who once loved me—I insist on it—
Still take us for granted
Since love without notice
Is most love.