6
by Foldyourarmsandsaynah_Archive
A long one, then a short one. First the long one:Rush HourCatherine Hunterthis is the place where the five carscollided in a long string as thoughthey were trying to become each otherthe way you want to become your loveras if it were possible to draw him through youas you draw hot water through a sieve untilthe water understands the sievebut whateverwater is, it is notwhat we are; the five carssharp and hard, their steelbodies breakingthrough bone this is the corner where the husband hunted downhis wife through the rush-hour trafficshe ran between the carsand as she was running, her terrorbeating through the citylike an awful drum, he cut herand cut her and stillshe continued to run is this fate?this useless thingthat hangs like an unfinished sentencecan you call this thing by the name of death?between your knees you hold the blue notebookand your cheap paperback copy of myths, a poortranslation, the covers closed, deliberatelyas eyelids, over the words hero, tragedy, fate when you were young and unemployed, the storyof Icarus moved you, you weptright here on a bus on Portage Avenue , thinking,irony, ironythinking you knew this citythis sieve of a city can you lift your eyes and lookat this corner, the ice-cream store, the parkwith its footbridge and kites, the small duckscircling the pond?the moment has leaked into everything here,the words broad daylight, witnessesyou heard there was one young man, a strangerwho stood above her desecrated bodywith a shovel, protecting heralthough she was already lifeless and aren't they alive, if we believethey are alive? from the windowyou think you can see your friend Colette, her brown armsswinging loose before herthen she is gone, nothingthere but the winter rain was he afraid when he faced that madman of a husband?did he believe himself immune to hunting knives?these are questions you cannot ask becauseshe diedbecause he has returnedto his obscurity, his ordinary lifehe returned suddenly, completely you watch the chain of head-lightssnaking through the duskyou feel you could pick it up at one end and whip itlike a string of Christmas lights above your headyou are angry, you are angryyou are less than angry, you are justa small defeated thing you stood at the bus depotcounting out your coins to buy a ticketyou were fifteen, you were leavingthis city, you were nevergoing to come backyou remember how that feltbut the streets pull you, they pull youthrough them until you are made to understand here you are, still, with your notebookthe book of myths half open and alreadytoo well readthis trade you think,is like the undertaker's trade:to imagine here on the white sheetthe semblance of breaththe whole city lies before youlimp and flayed like a skinned fishyou are tired they say there is a kind of beautyamong the children in the streetsthe condoms and the bleached needles they clutchlike holy candles in their chapped handsthe names of their mothers and sistersinked deep in their armsyou do not find this beautifulColette was beautifulBefore she drownedAnd the young wife, tooYou are giving up the search for beautyYou start to put your faith in giving upIt looks good to you although you have passed the cornerwhere she bled to death in daylightshe is still with youshe is with all of us, she isthis long ride homefrom the hospital, this cityyou have never been ableto leave behind youits twelve mighty bridgesits pigeons, its peoplewho skate on the rivers at night, glidingover thin ice, eyelashesdusted with frostshe is every lamppost, everycrack in the cement perhaps she believed she would escapeso many people, broad daylightwhen she fell, when she was fallingyou read that the young strangersaw the garden shovel lyingin a neighbour's yardand grabbed it up and raninto the traffiche claimed he did it without thinkingwithout thinking, this is the wayyou want to live, now your father once got lost near here, the white cane uneless in his hand as he forgot what year it wasthe Nazi tanks were coming for himthrough that blank and muddy spacebetween the trenches, a dream from whichhe could never open those eyeshe told you many times, there are no heroeshe can only hear the city, he can onlyfeel his way along its haunted, rumbling streets and haven't you felt it, too,nights when the blue and white towerof the CBC station seems to bowbefore a power greater than the windand this thin stripe of meatwe call the avenue twists and flipslike a ribbon come lose from a parcelisn't it true that if Daedalus pinnedhis waxed wings to the shouldersof this city's wealthiest sonhe would refuse to rise?The tower persistsIt is a great brain, a tall electric brain, and its white,Multiple eyeLooks through you when you sit with your notebook in somecoffee shop on Portage Avenueand the rain comes down, the sirensmoan, the waitress leans her cheek against the windowand for a moment both of you can hear the city breathingyou are both tired, you want to be done at the corner of Portage and Mainyou look up at the tall toweringgods of our citybrooding over their vast holdingsand you start to believein the death of heroesand that's when you rememberthe young man with the shovelhow he offered up all that he owned:his red veins for hers that were draininghis pumping heart for hers that was pierced and had stopped; he stoodbetween thet blade and the bodyof this woman he had never known,he said, this is the one thing herethat is human; I will honour it AAAAAAAAAAAAAAnd then the short one:To Good Guys DeadHemingwayThey sucked us in;King and country,Christ AlmightyAnd the rest.Patriotism,Democracy,Honor--Words and phrases,They either bitched us or killed us.c. 1922