Читать книгу Dear Prudence - David Trinidad - Страница 29

FOR NICHOLAS HUGHES

At last we know who

you were, beyond the baby

your mother woke and wrote to,

the baby crying while her body

lay, still warm, in the kitchen one

floor below; beyond the youth

sequestered among the moors,

silently fishing alongside his

famous father. We now know

your “varied pursuits”: stream ecology,

pottery, woodworking, boating,

bicycling, gardening, and cooking

“the perfect pecan pie.” How like

both of them you were! We now

know you would have nothing to

do with her, whose absence left

you hollow, and yet you found refuge

in the Golden Heart of Alaska, in

her country, an ice fortress blazing with Aurora’s lights. We know that in the nine years since the death of the Poet Laureate, that man of brick, your foundation crumbled; know that two years ago, you gave up your professorship to concentrate on ceramics. Is there no way out of the mind? One by one, the passage doors shut, and locked behind you.

Still, in your depression you were able

to climb Scafell Pike, the tallest peak

in England. We can see pictures

of you on the Internet now, Nicholas:

movie-star handsome, your stare refusing

us access, guarded against the acolytes

who would tear the very flesh from

your bones in order to possess her.

And now your death, we know that.

What is it, finally, but an image, the

feet of a condemned man that fell from

a poem—first one of hers, then one of his.

As if their poems could ever console

you, or explain away the pain. Death

was—and is—your legacy, we know

that now. At last, Nicholas, we know.

MARCH 27, 2009