Excerpt from Full Moon Boat

BONES TO HA NOI

He is wary in the train station,
the rucksack bundled in his arms
as if it were holy. He tries to be
casual so as not to let anyone think
it is important enough to steal.
There is a policy which forbids
boarding a train with the remains
of a body, but surely others have
done so, even if the train would
then be haunted by an unburied
soul, and dangerous for a while.
But these are a brother's bones,
coming back from a ditch in
the South. Ten years and still
many are intact. Tibia, fibula,
digits, vertebrae. How can he
be sure he has them all or whose
are which? Pieces are scattered
at the bottom of the rucksack,
inside the curve of half-ribs
that fence his toiletries, a change
of clothing. Such packing makes
it very difficult to find his novel,
so he sits like a peasant to market,
leaning on what no one knows
he holds. He feels devoid of
thoughts other than suspicion,
and feels dry-hardened as these
he loves, carries, and cannot smell.


SCREEN PORCH

Summer nights I loved the cool pillow
as it settled into dampness,

the city noise as it dwindled,
the smell of plants, lights in the apartment

across the street going out. Crickets.
First light had to be inferred from shadows

slipping off locusts, and tall wild sumacs,
from wet sparkles in the mesh,

a daddy longlegs looking right at you.


LEAN-TO

Into the dayroom long and polished as a bowling alley,
a nurse wheels in a tray with Dixie cups,
a few pills in each. The patients, none of them young,
and all women, are in varied states of psychosis
or stupor. Some are strapped at the wrist.
Others are belted at the chest to keep them upright.
An ebullient, gray-haired volunteer plays carols
and show tunes on a tiny harmonica.
("Who doesn't like music?" he asks us,
but my sister and I, we hardly notice.)
The television is loudly on, the camera panning over
a banquet table, candles, the mound of the turkey,
a wainscot dining room. The camera cuts to another
part of the house where a lubricious interlude
has just finished. The actor is working at his Windsor knot
while she, in a slip, sits on the bed and brushes
her hair as if it were to blame.
(We grin. We sense we are going to like this part.)
He firmly declares, "I will not seek a divorce,"
and that his belief in family is unwavering,
despite what happened. She in the warm spirit
of the season says, "I understand, I knew what
I was getting into." Now it's back to the dining room
where someone murmurs "mouthwatering."
It is the moment the minister arrives.
We hope more illicit sex is in the offing,
and other forms of forgivable wickedness
we might have giggled over, years ago
when we sat together under a lean-to
we had made out of discarded Christmas trees.
It was then, while spruce needles fell on our hair,
she explained to me how male and female fit.
The sleet outside ticked so loudly on the icy sidewalk
we could hardly hear who was calling us in.
It was a voice which seemed as far away
from us as the nurse now blocking the TV,
who leans over and says, "It's your turn,
Mary Pat," and stays until she swallows.

Copyright 2000 by Fred Marchant. All rights reserved.