Tom’s Sublet
Once, a long time ago in Rome, I was bathed
in the bathtub of a princess, descendant of
privilege and popes. I had no clothes. I slept naked.
Parquet floors, gold-framed original prints, casement
windows flung wide to embrace the Roman night,
its tumble of stars. I laid claim to everything. After all,
I slept in her bed, bathed in her tub, was creamed
and perfumed, fed raspberries in crystal, sugared
almonds on her private terrace. For two magic days
as my banged-up duffle wandered the bowels
of the Roman airport, I was crowned, trans-
formed, transported, transposed. Fresh and new
as a newborn, a Puccini aria from a tin-whistle tune.
Sweet smelling as a daisy.
**
I don’t know where the princess was. Monte Carlo
in diamonds or a resort in the alps. Or how Tom acquired
that sublet—what name was used, what strings pulled.
He was only twenty-seven, wide-eyed, long-legged
and beautiful, with a way of fluttering his eyes
when he spoke like two blue moths charming a flame.
And oh, the way he’d sit, a sort of graceful slouch,
draping his long bones over the brocade as if
he had lived among Louis XV furniture all his life,
not as a boarder, but as a member of the upper crust,
moving gracefuly through the apartment, sponging
me in scented water, delivering love on a silver tray.
He was the closest I ever came to Italian silks, carpets
from Nepal, French cooking pots—all copper in and out.
**
But what I recall best after so many years is what
he taught me, never spoken directly but spelled out
in his eyes. The lesson always touched with a hint
of wonder, as if addressing a person half-asleep:
Were you under some poor, wan, lifeless, hopeless
illusion that there are things that are not possible?
On the day before I left for Europe, I received a letter
from him: Come. We will sit on the Via Veneto
eating ice-cream and watch all the elegant people go by.
On our last night in that forever city of ochre light
and soft shadows, we went dancing—the duffle
finally found and delivered—then sat, spooning up
gelato in silver cups while nodding like royalty
to the crowds on the Via Veneto, as if we owned it.
Without Longing, What?
It would never be satisfied. It would
never not return.
—Frank Bidart
Made for love I was, formed as by a potter’s
hand: the clay of me, the wet ooze, thrown
on the heart’s wet wheel. You ask if love
ever made me happy. I was never happy.
Even as a child, a wind-up toy and ripe, I be-
lieved the songs, how could I not, innoculated
by that wax-hot needle. Now, in the sleepless
winter of my age, I watch the moon cast the trees
in silver, the stars falling into their vacant arms
and know, the sky is not the pale sky of heaven
but of earth, raw earth. O Lady of Longing,
I have been without and risk-free for so long,
I need a dose of my old poison. Pour it out
until I’m wading in it ankle-deep. It makes
little difference if all my demons are fed.
It’s hunger I’m after—the yearning that
festers and burns, exploding in my chest
like July fireworks, those dangerous blossoms.
