Selected Poems. James Tate
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the chilled earth where
you hang out. I think
you are doomed to become
symbols for us that we
will never call by name.
But what rifles through
our heads is silence, one
either beyond or below
whatever it is that we do
know. We know by heart,
don’t we? We’ve never
learned. And we bring what
we have known to you, now,
tonight. Open your home
to us, Rodina. Kiss
our brains. Tell us that
we are not drunk, and
that we may spend
our summers with you.
The Lost Pilot
for my father, 1922–1944
Your face did not rot
like the others—the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others—it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive
orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,
with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested
scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not
turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You
could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what
it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least
once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,
I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger’s life,
that I should pursue you.
My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,
fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake
that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.
Intimidations of an Autobiography
I am walking a trail
on a friend’s farm
about three miles from
town. I arrange the day
for you. I stop and say,
you would not believe how happy
I was as a child,
to some logs. Blustery wind
puts tumbleweed
in my face as I am
pretending to be on my way
home to see you and
the family again,
to touch the orange
fingers of the moon.
That’s how I think of it.
The years flipped back last night
and I drank hot rum till
dawn.
It was a wild success and I wasn’t sad when
I woke past noon
and saw the starlings in the sky.
My brain’s an old rag anyway,
but I’ve got a woman and you’d say
she’s too good for me. You’d call
her a real doll and me a goof-ball.
I’ve got my head between my paws
because it’s having a damn
birthday party. How old do you think I am?
I bet you think I’m
seventeen.
It doesn’t matter. Just between
us, you know what I’m doing
now? I’m calling the cows home.
They’re coming, too.
I lower
myself to the ground lazily,
a shower of avuncular kisses
issuing from my hands and lips—
I just wanted to tell you
I remember you even now;
Goodbye, goodbye. Here come the cows.
The End of the Line
We plan in partial sleep
a day of intense activity—
to arrive at a final bargain
with the deaf grocer,
to somehow halt a train;
we plan our love’s rejuvenation
one last time. And then
she dreams another life
altogether. I’ve gone away.
The petals of a red bud
caught in a wind between
Hannibal and Carthage,
the day has disappeared.
Like a little soap bubble
the moon glides around
our bed. We are two negroes
lugubriously sprawled
on a parched boardwalk.
The Move
… you are alone with the Alone,