Since Tom was born, I’ve never flown with you;
if we crash now, my brother and his wife
should be the children’s guardians. She cares—
her table always has a bowl of fruit;
the pans above her stove make a design
of rising circles like the sun at dawn.
And when Stan built the wall around their house
with stones that he and Donny gathered from
the river bed, he would call “Now!” and swoosh,
from Donny’s hands to his, the stone would slide
in place as if the mortared wall had willed
itself. I watched them work before you said
you wanted children of our own; your voice
was so deliberate you frightened me.
How could you let your sister raise our boys?
Painting is what she loves-in her queer way:
her morning valley mists are purple; even
her pines and hemlocks have a purple hue;
her still-lifes have no peaches, only plus
and shadows of more plums. Don’t laugh as if
I mean this merely as a joke! Your sister
has a purple soul; she thinks she’ll live
forever in some paradise of angels
lounging in their purple clouds. And if
she can’t face death, how can she raise a child?
Paintings may last, but they don’t live or die,
and even so, for how long? Everything
returns into the dark. My father’s gone;
mother is ill; maybe our plane will crash;
maybe this summer at the waterfall
a child will drown just as your brother did.
A dead child is more loss than any mind
can hold: like mountains hazing into dusk;
like purple dusk dissolving into night.
Don’t watch me from the corners of your eyes.
That’s what your sister does. Her portrait of you
caught the rigid way you tilt your head-
as if your brother’s voice called from beyond
the painting’s edge. White tinted hair, she put
her white gloves on and stood there with her hand
poised in the cool, fluorescent light, glaring
at her canvas till your lips emerged
an oily wet, with downward purple curves.
And then, for ornament, she made those curves
again, sketching your eyebrows and your ears.
Those curves were what she cared about—they made
her smile! I saw it sweep across her face!
I swear, if heaven is just, she’ll have to scrub
the angels’ underwear a hundred years
before her penance is complete. For what?
For purple curves—not loving life enough
to grieve we circle back into the dark.
Your sister paints in order to forget
that nothing lasts; because your brother died,
she can’t stay faithful to a living man.
How can she raise a child? You are like her;
your brother’s death is still locked up in you
you could decide to keep him there
alive by holding back against your grief?
Did you decide to fall in love with me?
Maybe your sorrow did, to free itself;
you need my tears to weep your own. I see
the mountain, you, our gentle, handsome boys—
everything I love-hazing into dusk.
I see it-it’s all there almost as if
it has already happened. I’m afraid
to fly with you today; I want my will
to be a circle with the words: I CARE.
I’ve got to win this argument because—
because my brother and his son together
built a wall around their house; because
my brother’s wife keeps peaches in a bowl!
You could decide, my love, and willingly
so that you’ll be a model for our sons,
to let my purple passion have its way.
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