In order to aid in prolonging the life spans of: copper plants, dead nettle, yesterday-today-and-tomorrow plants, &c.,
I must keep the shade drawn in the garden room for every 2.5hr/3.
Every three hours in the garden room, I was allowed to un-draw the heavy terry-cloth shade, purple. For only one half hour. It took me a while, but I got the gist.
I had a book light.
“No one’s making you stay cooped up in here, partner,” Pal said. Oh okay, so maybe it was a tactic! Maybe they were trying to smoke me out of there or something. Get me walking, exercising my knee. The threat of “carbon, not monoxide, poisoning”—crafty!
“You seem a little agro,” Luca said one day. “No offense.” But I’d been reading the Plath and the Sexton, so, “I’m just in a weird headspace,” I said, “I’m sorry.” He had brought me some quinoa and kale and a new mix: Songs About, But Not Commonly Played At, Weddings:
Tracks: 1. “Death of an Interior Decorator,” Death Cab for Cutie, 2. “Speak Now,” Taylor Swift, 3. “Today,” Joshua Radin, 4. “Wedding Bells,” Coldplay, 5. “White Wedding,” Billy Idol, 6. “Wedding Song,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It was short, so I could tell he’d made it in a hurry.
“Thank you, Luca.” We didn’t kiss. I worried something was off. When Pal came in later, he asked what my book was about—Ariel by Plath.
“Well, there is a lot in it about being a mom and being sick with depression and—” I realized I should have just said “hooks” and “tulips”; I tried to recover.
“Honestly, it’s mostly about hooks and tulips. That’s basically it.”
“Plenty of those outside. Hooks in the shop, tulips in the garden. Just right outside—”
5.
“Let’s walk to the shop, get some vitamin D.”
“I’ll do it for you, Pal. Won’t do it for me.”
“You really think I can make it all the way to the shop?”
“I sure do.”
“But it’s all the way across the yard! And it’s down a hill!”
“You can do it, partner. Just one step at a time.”
Babs said, “One … Pal, are you helping me?”
“Yes.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
I could have sworn there were only four of them.
But there were actually five.
“Fi—”
I went swinging myself over that last step like it was the ground.
“Partner!”
“Avery!”
(crunch)
(crunch, crunch)
(someone chewing a mint in here)
(who chews a mint at a funeral?)
I think Pal liked pop music because it was fun to listen to, and it was an escape—Pal went through some dark emotional times as y’all know. He lost his wife to cancer. He had periodic health troubles. Of course he didn’t only like pop music. He also liked jazz and blues and soul. He had depth. His favorite musicians were John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. He loved B.B. King and Elvis. He loved Donny Hathaway. He loved Roberta Flack. He loved music and fishing, and he liked movies. His favorite movies were The Searchers and Rebel Without a Cause, both of which he showed me when I was fairly young, maybe too young
(people laugh)
and which opened up whole new worlds to me.
His favorite books were A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean and The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton. The Compleat Angler was written in the eighteenth century, and is about making the discovery that you’re never alone.
A River Runs Through It is about the depth of an individual’s love for his family, and all of the complications that come from such a deep love.
Pal loved his family. He loved
(I take a breath)
my mom and me
and since I can’t sing any of the songs I’ve mentioned, and since it wouldn’t be worth it to summarize any of his favorite movies or books any further, and since I don’t know very much about fishing, I’m going to share a poem that Pal showed me.
A scuppernong vine woven on a thin metal wire stretched from the roof of the back porch to the roof of Pal’s shop. Make a zip line. Easy. Take a rolling pin, pass it over the top, grip down, drop, roll, and fly.
I asked if I could go back to the pain pill for the night.
Me: “Also, what am I crushing?”
Me: “I’m sorry.”
Pal: “We’ve got extra-strength Tylenol. You can have that. How’s that sound?”
Me: “It sounds great, Pal.”
Babs: “Avery, do not be sarcastic with your grandpa. He doesn’t get it.”
Me: “I’m sorry about your impatiens, Babs.”
We were all pumping adrenaline. They picked me up. Set me back in the wheelchair. A sudden shock. Took my breath away. Pal wheeled me to the garden room. “A tiny extra bit of vitamin D for you anyway, huh?”
He was trying to make peace. He sat down in the metal chair next to the open bag of topsoil. The chair joints squeaked. Blue tarp lining the floor rattled.
“You know, I’ve been trying to remember this poem I loved, used to love, probably. Would still love, about a fish. But I just can’t seem to—”
“Do you remember who wrote it?”
“I can’t. I might have to go look it up on the computer.”
It’s called “The Fish.” It was written by the poet Elizabeth Bishop.
(one nod of recognition—Ms. Poss)
Pal loved this poem.
Pal returned later with the poem. He had printed it out.
“Now read this and tell me this ain’t a great poem.” He set it on the bedside table, beside a fern.
6.
“Your last ibuprofen,” Babs said before bed. “It’s bad for your liver.” So I dreamed in several ways about my body failing.
In one dream, I was at the supermarket and noticed some of the meat there was my own. I woke up.
Sylvia Plath was in the room with me. She put a finger to her lips. Help me, she said, so I got out of bed.
She offered me a roll of duct tape. We need to seal the doors, she said. We don’t want what’s in to get out; what’s more, we don’t want what’s out to get in!
Why? I asked. What’s out there?
Tulips, she said. Lots of them, and believe me, I know what it’s like to be trapped inside a room
filled with tulips. It’s dreadful.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. I wrote that, you know? I lived it too.
And what’s in here that we want to keep in? I asked.
The soul of a poet, she answered. We have to protect it.
By now, we had finished sealing the door.
She took the duct tape from my hand, and then came a knock on the door—it was dreadful.
Sylvia hit the deck.
It’s the tulips! she whispered. Get down!
8.
Oooh-ooh-ohhhh, went the tulips outside. Ah-
Ha, one tulip went.
You know it sounds just a little bit like we’re having sex.
The other tulip, a male, trilled with laughter.
9.
I know those voices, Sylvia said. I’d know them anywhere.
Oh heavens no.
But then we heard a sharp striking against the garden room door.
And we knew the tulips had a tool. Something that would easily overpower the duct tape.
They were suddenly inside then, and they were walking toward us.
The tool was an oar. A white lady with brown hair. A white man with a bushy gray beard.
Sylvia, we thought you were going to help us, the woman said.
Anne Sexton.
The man, I believe he was John Berryman, huffed.
10.
I brought the oar, Anne Sexton said, for crying out loud! This was your idea, Sylvia. Your idea, and you abandoned it!
And us, John Berryman said. Lest we forget, you abandoned us too!
John Berryman seemed very hurt by this.
The thing is, I’m tired of rowing, he said.
I’m just fucking tired of rowing.
You and me both, babe, Anne said. She dropped the oar and stepped over to him.
The only one missing was Emily.
Where’s Emily? I asked.
Oh where do you think Emily is? Anne spat. God!
I’m keeping an eye on this poet soul for now, Sylvia said. So that my own soul has a purpose.
We had purpose enough, John roared, before!
Oh hush, Johnny boy, hush.
Anne read, Once upon a time there was a poet soul and it was very loved, and it had purpose, and it was called by the name of John Berryman.
John Berryman was loved dearly by all who knew him, and he continues to be read and taught to this day.
John Berryman fell promptly asleep on her shoulder.
Anne said, Can we use this? She pointed to the bed—So, what all have you written, poet?
Well, if you go in my backpack—I gestured. Sylvia was on it. Sylvia riffled through and found a copy of “I’ll Never Eat Fish-Eggs …”
She showed it to Anne, while I opened my notebook to my works in progress.
Anne read.
She looked stern and was completely silent.
When she looked up, she said it was brave to be ruthless toward the mother.
It is brave to be ruthless toward the mother.
But that’s all, really, I can say, really, for these poems, as I don’t very much care for them otherwise, if I’m honest.
She passed the poems to Sylvia. I felt exposed and like I might start crying.
John Berryman was snoring.
11.
You’re right, Sylvia said, after having read a few herself.
He is not a great poet. But then again, neither was I, really, when I was his age. Some even say neither was I when I—
Oh hush, Anne said. You were a great poet, Sylvia.
Right then, her kindness made Sylvia cry.
I held out my sleeve.
So how do I become a great poet then? I asked. Do I just practice more?
12.
Have a lot of sex! John Berryman piped up. He was awake now, but maybe still half inside a dream.
I laughed, sort of embarrassed.
He’s not wrong, Anne said. And when I looked at Sylvia, she was nodding.
Have you ever had sex before, poet?
No, but I’m sort of planning to, soon.
With whom?
My best friend.
And what is her name?
His name, I said, is Luca.
13.
Fascinating! Anne lit a cigarette.
I find sex between men fascinating. Cigarette, John?
I won’t say no.
Have you ever thought about homo-sexuality in relation to evolution?
I shook my head.
Good, Anne said. Don’t think about it. No, the key is to live your life free of the burden of evolution.
Desire, passion. That’s what’s real. That’s what feeds your poetry.
And if you can make yourself into the smallest version of yourself, John added, write that. That will feed your poetry too.
His eyes were closing. He was about to doze again.
Now may we use your bed tonight, poet?
Anne flicked some ash into a ceramic pot from which some dead nettle grew.
We are very tired from all the constant rowing.
Constant rowing, I repeated.
And John’s advice: If you can make yourself into the smallest version of yourself, write that.
We fell asleep. I dreamt then about my teeth rotting. They were like chalk and my saliva kept dissolving them.
I tried to go to school. Tried to convince myself it looked normal.
When I woke up, all the poets were sleeping facedown, hands down their fronts.
I didn’t know what they were dreaming: I wanted to be dreaming it.
Sunday, Babs came in with her Bible and cups of tea. “You know, you are a Job.” She opened the Bible. “Because you are facing so much right now, and I’m sure you are just like, ‘God, what is going on?’ ”
The tea had Saint John’s Wort in it. I sipped. “I don’t honestly feel like that,” I said. I actually felt sort of okay, in the moment. I had written a poem that I liked, that interested me. It was under my bedsheet like a heating pad. Babs kissed me on the forehead.
“Oh, there go the Abbaticchios.” She nodded at the window. Luca and Gia piling into Gia’s yellow sedan. “That’s two prayers getting said for your mom today. Well, three, including mine.”
I wanted the Abbaticchios to see me. Maybe what I wanted was a prayer, or maybe what I wanted was to be missed. Maybe after noticing the copper plant first, and then me sitting up behind it, the Abbaticchios waving, “Oh look, there’s Avery! There’s Avery!”
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997); notable works Howl and Other Poems, Kaddish and Other Poems, Mind Breaths, White Shroud; famous poems “Howl,” “America,” “Sunflower Sutra,” “Kaddish”; death, after failing to be treated for congestive heart failure, Ginsberg spent days calling up loved ones to say goodbye,
& when he died, he was surrounded by them.
I read Kaddish and Other Poems from start to finish, and began it again immediately. I couldn’t get over how this was poetry, how it was messy and perfect and how that made it everything. It made me antsy, like caffeine; and the lines from “Kaddish,” how when Ginsberg learns his mother has died, he brings her words into the poem, her words that she actually spoke: “The key is in the sunlight at the window in the bars the key.” I repeated those words again and again like a prayer. A fourth person, potentially. Praying that day for Mom.
Another poem, called “Poem Rocket,” was shaped like a penis. I showed it to Luca, who went “Dick in the aiiiiir!” from this song we love, called “Dick in the Air,” and I think that’s how we both got horny. Studying Bio that day, when we struck our bargain, it was raining. Luca and I’d been back and forth between our houses, cobbling together notes and cards with definitions: receptor—organ or cell that responds to external stimuli, sends signal to sensory nerve.
My chest was damp from the rainwater. One day when we were in fifth grade, Luca had suggested our moms were alcoholics. We were learning about alcoholics in school. How if you abuse alcohol while pregnant, it could mess up the baby. Symptoms: drooping eyelids, big nostrils, thin lips, deformity. “Do we have any of these?” We checked. We took our shirts off. My dent in my chest, my pectus excavatum, was there, is there still. I was born with it. “Does this count?”
Luca balled his fist and pressed inside the dip in the breastbone: while studying, he pressed the receptor card in, definition down. When he pulled it away, some of the words stuck. “Now if you forget, just check inside your shirt.” He climbed into bed with me. He was looking for the definition. “I know it’s still stuck to you, cheater.”
Now, we tipped the fern off the bedside table. It didn’t smash, but it spilled soil all across
the blue tarp. We got nervous. We stopped. Later, Babs asked, “What happened here?”