Читать книгу The Do-Over - Kathleen Ossip - Страница 12

Ode

I sing of a most beautiful man in a factory in Longhua. Fifteen hours he sails among the never-finished piecework, his voice winding in rhythms and phrase groups, sumptuously so. Through the gold-blue day, through the edgy night, his tempestuous mind, the planes of his face amplify Plato. He returns to the dormitory, solitary among many, which makes him beautiful.

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If I can create the man,

Beauty can’t redeem

the iPod nano

made in a five-story factory

secured by police officers.

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Or an ode to flowers, borne in pairs on threadlike stalks.

Ode to a pond, a pool.

To a willow pattern on her good plates.

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If she were well and in Longhua

and in the factory and thrown together with him

and they shared a meal and she spoke Cantonese

or he spoke English and overcame

his desolation and distrust

she would befriend the man.

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The man tries to make a point, a new point, his own point. But no boss wants that. They only want points they already know, or just quick flowing motion, no points at all.

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Healthy is probably the word we use most.

The voice sounds heedful, over-ovened—rhetoric on a scooter.

Extend the dots: griefshock by Xmas.

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Ode to the container and the thing contained.

Ode to a well-lit room.

Ode to a pearl ring on a warm, fat finger.

Ode to the outskirts of never.

May this ode assert nothing.

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In a sleep state she is aware of many persons in her: one a cruel dominating man, one an embryo, one Jesus, one a charming flirtatious girl without care, etc.

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In this expanse, a governance powders, fragile. I’m a cipher, he said, but his friend didn’t know what “cipher” meant. On the silent video, a balladeer shatters human dignity.

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In the dark of the year, the holly wind-holdy, thoughts were and are.

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The beautiful man is a well. The beautiful man is a mirror. The beautiful man is a valve. The beautiful man is a plug and socket,

it being impossible.

The man becomes a travelogue, death a bonus gift if you act now, love a regiment of twinges,

it being impossible.

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He is stately and elaborate and speaks for himself, without any music at all.

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Ode to a bentwood chair

Ode to discomfort of all sorts

Ode to passivity

Ode to his lightweight jacket

Ode to bad moods and their justification

Ode to the inescapable

Ode to logical transitions, strained and frayed

Ode to the giantess Boredom

Ode to a long regret

Ode to radiation and chemo

Ode to the goldsmith bending bracelets for her

Ode to Chanukah and the Moon Festival

Ode to limitless compassion

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This ode’s my grinding wheel. When is the last I see of her two-handed. I sit with hands folded, by a pond, a pool, wimpled by unknowing. The beautiful man beside me. Or will see her in shortgrass, summerly.