A girl and her brother run through the fountain in Washington Square. The girl too young to be aware of her charm, how the water makes her grey dress cling to her thighs. Something La Rodine said that I would never forget, what was it? That she’d trust me, always. That love requires faith. At midnight the fountain shuts off and the water is quiet then and the children creep up the edge and gingerly dip their feet beneath the cool, unmoving surface. In Paris that night, what did she read to me? Something about a moon on water. She wrote to me later and said that she would remember me by pressing shards of the glass of me against the soul of her body. I am constantly jealous of the lovers that I see in New York City. By writing all this down I may still remember something yet. Something about those metaphysical rivers. I’ve forgotten her name. The girl who runs through the fountain, I never knew it. The water on her legs, her breasts, her neck. This loneliness could fill up a whole world La Rodine. I am writing this book so that I can find you. Your language which follows the flight of swallows in midair. Am I writing this to you as a kind of prayer? The evening light over Milan. Eating Indian food in the afternoons. I have never felt such exquisite silence. We are trying to forget ourselves La Rodine. The dead rising from the ashes of the water. I remember what you said about the swallows, that they are trying to break through into hidden worlds, and that is why their flight is so strange and beautiful. A girl next to me is writing in a notebook, just as I am, under the gaslamps in Washington Square.. A Columbian sings in Spanish and dances along the edge of the fountain. The Columbian speaks to the girl writing next to me and she responds in his language, with a clear precise accent. She smiles at me. Gaslamps under the trees. This language I can’t speak. I remember Andre now too. How we made love and listened to tango records in the afternoons. Hayden quartets and Miles Davis E.S.P. I’d meet her at the subway wearing a white undershirt. It was so soon after La Rodine, it wasn’t fair to her. Does she write about me, does Andre? A few images. Broken up. Whirring through the fountain.
GASDA WE’RE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE DRAFT
I liked this poem, but not as much as I like the BBA draft.
I thought you were gonna include something about how you ignored 30 of our phone calls and refused to show up at the BBA draft