Steven Cramer

TWO GHOSTS

—a variation on Enrique Anderson-Imbert

 

 

One summer night I lay down under a yew tree.
Nearly asleep, I heard what I thought was a cow,
its moo continuous, rusty, like a groaning hinge.

 

At the farthest edge of the field, too dark to see,
a door creaked open and out he came, head aglow.
“Excuse me,” he said, wisps of red and blue flame

 

lighting me up as I stood.  “Who in hell are you?”
I asked, my voice so dry it also groaned a little.
“Sorry. My mistake,” he said.  “What do you want?”

 

“Nothing.  My bad.  But this is the other world,
isn’t it?”  “What do you mean: ‘the other world?’”
I lay back down—“anyway, no. This is the world.”

 

 

 

THE EYE THAT DESIRES TO LOOK UPWARD
—a variation on Enrique Anderson-Imbert

 

 

When my father lay dying in the hospital,
he waved a copy of my first book of poems

 

at every doctor, nurse, and orderly he met,
I’m told.  “Look! My son wrote a book!”

 

The last time he called me, he spoke
into my machine from Intensive Care.

 

Barely a rumor of death in his voice,
I erased it with the others on the tape.

 

Next morning he died, so I never learned
what poems from my first book he read,

 

if any.  Did he read the one about him,
that one in which the speaker lies down

 

and plays dead next to his dead body?
Later on the night he phoned, he’d go

 

in and out of consciousness.  At worst,
maybe he hallucinated reading the poem.

 

Hallucinated:  hard word to fit into a poem
about a father’s death.  So many syllables. . .

 

I hope he didn’t read it. Thirty-six years,
and still I hope he never read that poem.

 

 

PROSE TRANSLATIONS OF ANDERSON-IMBERT’S MICROCUENTOS
by Armand F. Baker

 

 

TWO GHOSTS (originally titled The Two Ghosts)

On that dark, overcast, summer night I went to lie down under an ombu tree. I was about to fall asleep when it sounded like a cow began to moo. A long, rusty moo, of squeaky hinges. In the field—black, black, black—a large door opened with the same squeaky noise. And he came out of the door, like a will-o’-the-wisp. “Ah, pardon me,” he said when he saw me. I must have been easier to see, illuminated by his bright glow. I rose half way up, resting on my elbow, and with a dry throat I asked him: “Who the heck are you?” “Forgive me. I made a mistake.” “What do you want?” “Me? Nothing. Goodbye. As I told you, I made a mistake. This is the other world, isn’t it?” “No. What do you mean the other world? This is the world.” “Ah, is that what you call it?” And he disappeared.

 

 

 

 

THE EYE THAT DESIRES TO LOOK UPWARD (originally untitled)

My father was dying in the hospital. He was now a querulous cancer. I was listening to him when he died. In his final moments, he opened his eyes and shouted, “Son,” and he began to cry, thinking that I was the one who had died. So as not to make him think otherwise, I stretched out in the bed at his side and closed my eyes, next to his delirium.