POEMS
David Lehman
RECENT ACQUISITION
In 1958, when it was finished,
Morris Louis called it "Beth-Gimel,"
That is, the second and third letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
Loss of the original Aleph being the painter's point, perhaps.
(Beth meaning house, it could also mean "House of Gimel.")
It
looks like a scarf, made of silk, all brown
Except for thin rainbow stripes (red, blue,
And two shades of yellow) along the sides.
On the other hand, it could be seen
For what it might have been: the back of a head,
Masculine, with a flattop haircut, such as was sported
By the character called Bizzarro in
Superman
comic books.
Gimel seems a good name for him.
The monstrous bulge on the right side could be
An oversized ear, a jutting bone, a nerve that refuses to behave,
Or an excess of chewing tobacco in cheek.
We are in the locker room, with the dirty jokes and socks
Of jocks. But when the pads come off
His shoulders, and we remove him from that region
Where brightly colored butter knives descend from the sky,
See how different he looks and sounds.
Now we can see the long stem of his neck-so taut, so thin–
For the suffering there has been, is, and will be
Overcome! at the cost of weariness and comic nightmares
Of ladders climbed nightly, leading nowhere
Under the sheltering clouds. We hear him sing
A (once) popular song, we see him stand on the narrow ledge
Of a cliff the shape of his own head, a gothic
Mountain disguised as a skyscraper, purely vertical
And impossible to climb, so how did he get there?
Here, untold stories above sea level, he can be
Oblivious to the traffic below, alone at last.
