176
PARTISAN REVIEW
Now froze in fixity, a finished fang
At her harangue.
Poor maid, less fair but wiser in the leap,
Broke as a stick of wood might, thrusting, break
If
cast upon a heap; her knight lay steep
Gazing up to her from his watered deep.
RuTH HERSCHBERGER
D-DAY H-HOUR PLUS X
Pass by the very window where even now you are: you'd really gone
With keys of sleight-of-hand to the fountain in the Plaza.
And then come home. Commuted. Suburban, yes, but torn:
Wax is the fruit on the table, substantial and yellow as stone;
Corrupt is the flesh in the Plaza that lies near the
city
Azusa.
You cannot say which need was more (and more your own):
The bottomless fountain, the durable room.
Pass by on D-day plus forty and three or one thousand and eight.
H-hour recurs, persists, conscripts, expropriates the graves
In which you laid (with boned fingers, or fingers effete
And exact as scissors) the chilled bodies, each discrete
And satisfactory. Sit still as dawn and still the hound arrives
To dig and nag the catacomb. And eyes alarmed
Behold the sacked tombs, the bodies warmed.
Pass by. (Unless perhaps you corked the room, locked the mind
In the Father's vault) you are not free. No key may turn the hour
For the bid is iron, for there is no bed. The fountain winds
With winding arms; the hour declares, unveils and rends
Obliterated pacts, settlements and sins. And, even more,
Restores. These were you and they are yours
Again to seal with mouth, to hammer at with claws.
Pa~
by like muted submarines, flying ships or twittering machines:
Your square, your fountain, your city near Azusa. You are haunted.
