798
PARTISAN REVIEW
Its refuse, sparkling through my cage,
Branded me, Michael!' Then a popping noise.
It was her toy's
Fragments, her cockatoo. She yelled.
The whisky tumbler in her hand
Became a brand.
Her pigtails that her Aunt had belled
To tell us she was coming, flashed and tinkled.
'Husband, you used to call me Tomcat-kitten.
While we were playing Hamlet on our stage
With curtain rods for foils, my eyes were bleeding;
I was your valentine.
You are a bastard, Michael, aren't you!
Nein,
Michael. It's no more valentines.' Her hand
Covered her eyes to cage
Their burning from the daylight. Sleep dispelled
The burden of her spirit. But the cars
Rattled my window.
Where am I to go?
She yelled:
'Let go my apron!' And I saw them shine,
Her eyeballs-like a lion at the bars
Across my open window-like the stars!
Winter had come on horseback, and the snow,
Hostile and unattended, wrapped my feet
In sheepskins. Where 1'd stumbled from the street
A red cement Saint Francis fed a row
Of toga'd boys with birds beneath a Child.
His candles flamed in tumblers, and He smiled.
'Romans!' she whispered, 'look, these overblown
And bootless Brothers tell us we must go
Barefooted through the snow where birds recite:
Come unto us, our burden's light- light,
light,
This bu'i'den that our marriage turned to stone!
o
Michael, must we join this deaf and dumb
Breadline for children? Sit and listen.' So
I sat. I counted to ten thousand, wound
My cowhorn beads from Dublin on my thumb,
And ground them.
Miserere?
Not a sound.
