A Shadow in Yucatan Read online

  ‘Profession of the Father?’

  What did the man profess?

  That smooth sweet talker, un-confessing party fella, the walk-away soft-spoken con, gentle enough in loving, nice enough, no more...

  ‘I think he Knocks'n'Sells...’

  ‘Name of the Mother?’

  Ah me? I have a name?

  I, the spreading shade of passing pleasure, I am never asked...

  A dusted delicacy of quick consumption. I carry the name of Nature; wax like a ruddy redwood to let fall one perfect seed.

  Must I needs also a name?

  ‘Stephanie de Steffano’

  ‘That’s real purty. I like that. Y’from Italy or somethin?’

  ‘Brooklyn’

  ‘Y’don’t say...Form is simple. Jus sign here...’

  Simple? Sure. Insurance heads off with credit card, addresses marry telephones...

  Symptoms last, with measurements and morning sickness.

  ‘Powder room’s through dere. Jus slip y’things

  Dere’s a gown behin de door.’

  Dr Paul is awaited with sober knees and goose- green skin...

  The couch facilitates disembowelling by holding horse heels in the air. Guernica!

  She chooses a chair...

  Debbie Robsart, cute in College, consents to sit for the wall.

  His children credentials freckle faced, soured by lemon sorbet socks and fizzy frills...

  Dr Paul does it by the book.

  There are books besides, regimental, piped with gilt, ordered not consulted.

  Two dead flies at the window, unobserved by the cleaner, are his burden of misfortune.

  He enters, stomaching a clip-pad, with thoughtful clicking tongue...

  Fingers straggle pensive to the safe lapel, and spatula...

  The tapping toe peruses...ten seconds is chewing gum, stretched ever longer...

  ‘Date of last bleed was when did y’say?’

  (The Ides of May I?)

  ‘Fifteenth, last month’

  He spins the Winthrop calculator (roulette reminder not to be on the links when stakes are drawn)

  The belly-bolting, tumbling-tide-of- help-me-Father could be arranged to suit the Caribbean cruise...

  The raft of verbal boundary nailed. The sails will circum-navigate with careless quipping ease...

  ‘People do this everyday. Relax’

  The concierge in clogs and crackling skirt, hoists limbs astride the stirrups,

  covers the calyx that hangs its shadowed head.

  The un-tossed rose dies in the dark, and withers to the compass steel.

  ‘You’ve got a pelvis for an Atlas’

  He withdraws the gander beak and drops it in the cackling dish.

  ‘That’s it Marcel. Let the girl go free...’

  The carcass thighs are soft; the vanquished body drags itself over the sand to a hook.

  Sunday-Key West.

  I shall go hang on the Continent’s tail, beyond the Barfly at Sloppy Joe’s

  Heedless of his beard and belching, my oaths will be toes in the aimless water...Nostrils to the brindled air.

  Space will shimmer scents from Tenochtitlan.

  Gold bracelets bind me to the suicide of Cortez.

  I am lost, but I shall find. They will never follow me.

  I shall tread juice from tobacco clippings, and watch the old men spit

  Havana ola, in the speckled shadows of the straw market, my feet in the ashes, my cheeks smeared with clay, wanton, outcast like them.

  I shall not lick or roll. I shall not have to work

  I shall simply be there.

  For a day.

  I shall eat smoked mackerel, pungent with wood, steamed by the water, in a tipping boat.

  The heaving horizon I shall tame to undulation.

  I have spoken. I shall swim.

  I shall tip boat-barrel and glide among the hawsers of forgotten hulks, black amid keels, menacing with mouths. Treasure is forgetfulness.

  I shall sink.

  I shall surface like the mermaid seal, untouchable.

  Drag my gleaming limb.

  Lollop and skid on the board-walk to watch the taffeta water summon the world to drink.

  I shall squint through rust and bitumen.

  Bite through my lip.

  The surgeon sun will fit me legs, brace my back and bandage my eyes.

  I will be led to convalesce.

  The gold gulf wind will draw me unobserved past shutters, rocking chairs and limes.

  The machismo of yesterday is a hat by the water’s edge.

  ‘Mein Gott, the tenant is bedraggled, das liebes Kind is fried...

  She’ll look like the lobster tomorrow...butter is for burns, but am I interfering?

  I’ll just leave the iced tea.

  I hope she’ll talk or something. What is it now that’s changed?

  Something worse? Or better?

  Inside somewhere I’m sniffing steel.

  Monday- Brooklyn.

  Guiseppe de Steffano is weighing cornmeal with expansive fat fingers...

  sniffing dust rising from the stoop, scoop-rolled sacking of harvest.

  For each creaking knee, a pound of bounty,

  measureless calf nose, wet-stone, clinking bucket-and-chaff intoxication...

  There is a granary near Lucca...

  but olive oil still to be pumped, safe for the afternoon.

  Women who enter are guests at the patron’s apron of white.

  The groom of autumn leads on to the half ounce paprika, two green peppers, half-a-pound tea.

  ‘They have the appointaments, sure...

  They have the new bambino, and will they feed it properly? Encora...’

  If they ask for salami, he wraps the weight of bells in Bologna.

  Pasta he sells with regret. It is so much better fresh

  If they take also Parmesano, he will show the machine that makes it easier...

  ‘For the sake of the children and the health of this God forsaken nation!’

  Of course the kitchens have no light, the windows no cockerel burnished with sunrise,

  the walls no vines, the eaves no dipping swallows...

  There is no gushing pump

  ‘But Santa Maria, an apron they can make!’

  He has time for a view of the valley, and to stand for the Angelus.

  Once a master baker, he now calls himself an alchemist.

  ‘Cara, I sell art, not food...

  Delicatessen! Never let me hear that word!’

  He follows a dismal ragatsa, tugging her sulky son...courteous to poverty, and its second hesitation.

  Gives her the apple, and slowly shuts the door.

  He switches off the lights, stands and drops his head...

  The gloom of day could be his farm stone store, but mice are there the movement that here is trickling rice.

  Extinguished hospitality turns to blunt dispatch.

  He cleaves six strokes of prosciutto, wraps it in greaseproof, hangs a clean coat behind the door, latches and leaves for lunch.

  Cara defers exactly at noon.

  She ceases sorting index cards, slips an invitation in the entrails of a book...

  Removes some of her lipstick, but refreshes her scent, ties a token apron...on afterthought knots her hair; unbuckles wedge-heeled sandals, slips into something flat...

  Smoothes her generous bosom, moves unthinking to her hip, catches herself in the unperturbed glass, shrugs with sly chagrin...

  Guilio will be tired. There’s no need for anything

  The provider lets himself in backwards, gracious to the Signora in the passage without.

  Acknowledgement is a habit he cannot learn to lose.

  Cara clicks, slides waxed linen across the polished board; lays plates and large pressed napkins, knives and silver forks, pinches a radish from the salad, goes to bring in cheese...

  Guilio appraises, shrewdly unconcerned, tonguing his teeth with h
is back to the view...

  ‘Y’been out?’

  ‘Guilio, of course not!’

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘Perhaps later...I don’t know...Come eat the lasagne, and after, we have veal...’

  He spreads his billboard napkin, tucks it in his tie.

  She kisses him roundly, and pinches both his cheeks.

  They eat in virtual silence. Most things are understood.

  *****

  Cara leans thoughtless at the window, with hip and ankle flexed, drinking percolated coffee, with an idle cigarette...

  Watching the insipid sun assault the robust haze to reach the middle chimneys, and at her feet, the street.

  Her master has carried his plates to the sink, left his napkin on the chair rail...

  Gone for an hour’s sleep.

  The day, left to itself, drags on a butt of air, snouts papers up contemptuously...kicks a tin can.

  The garbage awaits the three black men.

  Bell blast imperious!

  The flaming roaring telephone drags Cara from miasma to strangle it in wool...

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Mama it’s me. Oh Mama it’s terrible...can you hear? Stephanie.

  Mama I’m pregnant...Mama don’t talk.. Wait let me tell you...Is Papa asleep?’

  ‘Pregnant Madre Sacra, what the fuck does that mean?

  Pregnant, Santissima, so we all go to hell!’

  The butter-solid silence, the metronome clock times the breathing of Goliath on his gorse gold bed...

  The satin quilt slithers, subsides upon the floor...

  Do springs betray intention?

  He is still asleep.

  Cara winds the long reproach of her daughter’s quiet life in a solid skein of anger, a loop of perfect purpose, a rope, an unsheathed knife.

  ‘It simply is not possible, and I do not want to hear...’

  ‘Mama who are you? Can I...’

  ‘Listen I have said. It simply has not happened and he must never know...’

  Compressed control hisses, the diamond backed hand becomes a fist of certainty.

  There is sting in the twisting ring.

  ‘Mama I cannot’

  ‘Oh yes you can, for the sake of your father. He’s a wonderful man...

  Also for Enrico who thank God is in Genoa...’

  ‘Enrico mama! That is all absurd...’

  ‘It is your father’s dearest hope...Since you gave up on College you owe him that, at least. We must return to Lucca...Now you must do it soon...’

  ‘It is only legal in New York’

  ‘What you are going to do no-one can legalize...but you must not come here.

  Ring me when it’s over. Then you go away...I have many things to think about but first I go to pray...’

  In silence sycophantic the apron is untied...

  Swift scrolls of supplication wrought in iron bars of lace.

  She hangs two rings with the duplicate keys, and carefully lets herself out...

  She will not wait for the elevator, no, she will use the stairs.

  The Park

  Am I imprisoned in this kiosk of crude history?

  The crossroads of ancestral hope confounded by a pin of chance?

  Shall I carve my grief’s graffiti?

  While my stomach sings like grasses by the sea, bewildered?

  Am I dumb and senseless captive creature

  that I doodle with the pencil point of pain,

  while the spaces roundabout

  monument this mockery?

  The metallic landscape is impervious

  to bubbles frothing anonymity...

  There is always more of pain.

  The grasses will go singing to infinity...

  It is now six, almost.

  At six there will be people in the park...

  Not the drip-dry shirtwaist and neckerchief duos on the benches leaping to arrest the wheel of imminent concussion.

  Those will have packed the juice bottles and gone home.

  Up in the dog-eared shade the swings will whisper-tip in melancholy echo of the afternoon’s brief impulse...

  The static giraffe may yet crane its neck to challenge the energies of rowdy boys

  but those are not the ones she needs.

  Nor else the Senior Citizens in banded hats, who pace the last long-fingered ball, and bend to speculate upon a lie of grass, that elongates the image pleasantly...

  ‘Maudie y’know has real slim wrists...If only she’d make the effort...

  Arthritis ain’t the end of the world...Why, plenty of folks go about with sticks.’

  No. Below the belt of sloping trees, the ground is flat to take the rummage of impromptu ball.

  The Hey-Here-Wow! of young blood blurring the boats, stripped to shorts and drum beat skin...

  watched by bare-back girls, with swinging breasts under scarves of poinsettia silk.

  Clay pressed collar bone, coil of ear, a kiss of sleek sun-sculptured hair...

  Mirage-maidens collectively, the distant voices modulate...

  Approached, it splinters into purses, apples, fags, quick darting glanced appraisal, then nonchalance contrived...

  They mostly know the name of the game.

  Some play for real. Some observe and grin.

  Sim and Josh are brothers, unalike, yet drawn by their acknowledged differences, to share with tacit time-content, a garage wholly welcoming.

  Music is its core, mattresses its skin,

  there are good girlie posters and a broken john.

  Their clothes need patching, sneakers are worn through, but there’s coffee, wine and more often than not, Hungarian food.

  Sim is no mean cook, on the primus he nicked from a chemistry lab

  ‘Nadia, god bless her, was my inspiration. Legs like Marlene, and breasts t’make ya sing.’

  Josh is always silent, the water to Sim’s thirst, to his cornstalk, glade.

  He gently plucks ‘Petroushka’ on the ribs of his concave chest, takes another swig of coffee and stretches his long legs.

  His body is deficient from long pursued neglect.

  Sim has calories enough to feed his lassitude.

  They weight each other’s balance, avoid each other’s girls.

  Together idly speculate upon the squawk of birds...

  ‘All that flesh yonder, and the splendid motion of those things!’

  ‘Wrap it up Sim. I have no appetite’

  ‘Did ya bring the Frisbee?’

  ‘Sure thing’

  ‘C’mon then...if they join we’ll see them swing...

  Halleluiah honey...Ok, Ok don’t sweat...

  It was just a way of saying y’look good enough to eat.’

  Stephanie skirts the nail-buff, match-flick, lie- down, roll over fledglings.

  In no mood to reflect or disclose

  She hedge hops for the shade, where Lisa and her little son hold guttering candles out for Sim...

  Way over yonder he removes his shirt, stretches and then throws a flawless curvature.

  The frail and freckled mother squints against the glare, adjusts her slipping headband, knocks the tower...all fall down.

  ‘Hey, how are you?’

  ‘Why hi Steph...we don’t often see y’here...Come sit down a second...No, Philip, you’ve had one’

  The two year old diversion makes it easy to begin, to crouch, to squat, to find yourself sitting with a spade.

  ‘He’s really growin bigger’

  ‘Yeah, he eats an awful lot...No, Philip, mama said...What the hell honey, sure, you go ahead’

  The tilting toddler sets off towards the man, trips over an exposed root, gets up and carries on.

  ‘Lisa, tell me really...Is it easy...y’know...on your own?’

  ‘What? With a kid? Sure, it gits like second nature...

  Why? What made y’ask?’

  ‘I’m expecting.’

  ‘No! Y’poor thing...Don’t honey...

 
; Don’t consider it...For God's sake git it fixed...It’ll finish all y’chances...might as well resign...

  I know Philip’s gorgeous...but if I hadn’t had him, I’d have done it differently.’

  Philip’s clamour in the distance is more visual than heard.

  Sim hoists him on his shoulder, ignoring the wet pants, hey up, comes giddy-up galloping over the grass...

  ‘There y’are...go to Mama...she needs ya...hell she don’t...

  ‘Sim meet Stephanie, Stephanie, Sim...Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth, Tarot-tell time...advice for a girl in the family way?

  ‘Hitched to a steady fella?’

  ‘No’

  ‘Then I don’t really see a choice...Ten minutes and sixty dollars is really all it takes...So, y’ave no money? What kinda excuse it that?

  You only have to say the word...Josh and me’ll pass the hat...’

  ‘Thank you’

  ‘Don’t thank me. Belongs t’all of us...S’long Lisa...meet on Thursday Steph?

  Now you be good, young man...Ok Josh, wowee, watch it, here she comes...’

  With a Truckee - Hitching North

  ‘Bye bye Miss American Pie

  Drove ma Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry...

  An good ole boys were drinkin whisky an rye

  Singin this’ll be the day that I die... This’ll be....’

  ‘Gum?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘D’ya sing?’

  ‘Why d’ya ask?’

  ‘Dunno. Helps some.’

  Everglades awash with saw-grass to the borders of peachy Georgia; the smoke grey road cuts the water-flow.

  It was laid by the card-sharper’s hand.

  ‘Who would’ve thought there was money in it?’

  ‘There are always them as do.’

  ‘You would’ve had to wan’it bad.’

  Yonder St Augustine. Over the scales of the alligators into the arms of the ladies with lace fans and satin caps...

  ‘Whoops...easy now... and the silver salver for the collection, our heritage an all...

  Pay no mind to the Seminoles...we pay ‘em fur the wrestlin...an most of ’em are tame.’

  There are bird hides out on the flats, for them as can stand the mosquitoes, the ever murmuring midges...