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The Mechanics of Repair
How did I spend my evening?
By coming home in rain that slowly
translated itself into curtain after curtain
of oriental beads that I brushed through
cold and very tired.
All winter the repairman
has come dressed in sweaters,
never coats, crouched in darkness
at the heart of things, trying to perform
the mechanics of repair.
The first time he had to chip open
the furnace door, cemented
by past tenants, saying You can't
tell a thing unless you can see the flame.
I brought him coffee, whiskey that last time
he knelt on the icy floor at one a.m.
and still the furnace wouldn't start.
Tonight, I don't even call. It's clear
when a thing's past fixing.
As last antidote to this endless chill
I make myself invent Maikiska, a Yugoslavian
in her thirties, old world flowers
braided in her long brown hair.
She will speak no ill of me nor hear
ill spoken. Her English, sweet as almonds,
needs no real correction. In her own country
she would be a duchess, if regimes
could be erases. If, if, she suddenly says,
and her laughter is a church full
of votives lighting all at once.
If is word you use like city people
light fireplaces for party. Throw in kerosene.
Big flame but no fire after that.
For you we need kindling and paper, kindling
and little match. About emptiness
she has nothing to say. So I cook
black mushrooms, gingered pork,
chinese noodles clear as glass.
Then take a shower, relieved to stand
under something in my control.
Outside, a matter of degree and rain
translates itself into another thing
entirely. A neighbor, penitent and tender,
leans over, with a flashlight and old sheets,
his snow-dusted crocuses, unaware
they can, alone, survive this weather.
How odd, after all, to find myself
speaking brokenly, aloud, claiming
birth in a foreign country, all for the sake
of possessing again the delicate mechanism
of flame. I settle under the quilt
that took me seven years to sew; my sheets,
a very simple blue, no real way
to say how blue they are: child's pinafore,
morning sky pure in a forgiving mirror.
Sleep, embrace, something essential
endures. Lullaby, whispers Maikiska, listen.
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