Philip Dacey's Final

Philip Dacey is the author of nine books of poems, the most recent THE NEW 

YORK POSTCARD SONNETS: A MIDWESTERNER MOVES TO MANHATTAN (Rain Mountain Press, 2007). The winner of three Pushcart prizes, he has written books 

about Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Eakins.  His website is 

www.philipdacey.com


ALL SOULS’ DAY, 2006: AN EPITHALAMIUM   
  
                                     Cottonwood, Minnesota


When Fay came home to marry in the house

in which she played, the ghosts of all the girls

she was surrounded her, admiring, touched

her hair, her face and hands, wide-eyed to see

the woman they’d suddenly become, and wide-

eyed, too, to see the man embracing her,

the man they all were meant to find, although

his name was hidden in the cottonwoods.


When Fay walked down the stairs to marry him

who knew the ghosts were there because he felt

the history of the place, and Fay’s place in

that history--the days Fay filled and stored

away until the time she knew she’d take

them out to wear on wrists, at neck, from ears,

the days like spirit-jewelry to grace

a ritual--some ghosts came down with her, intent

on being brides themselves, while others waited

below, playing the future smiling in welcome,

each smile familiar, a mirror of her own.


And when the two joined hands, the many ghost-hands

added themselves, encircling Fay’s and Ezra’s,

the seen and unseen hands a sphere, a wholeness,

what these two were pledged now to create,

an answer to division everywhere,

to make division but another ghost,

but this one nothing, a ghost of absence, rather

than one of those who nodded along with Fay

ghosts of presence, their heads like blooms on stems,

a fullness rising and falling in the wind,

itself another ghost, the invisible

never more visible than when a word

takes on the weight and test of action--that is

to say, at the quiet thunder of the vows.





 
           PLASTICIZE ME	


My sweetie flinched to hear me say I’d give

my body to a med school, teaching tool

for cutting open, even welcome how

they’d saw my skull apart, expose my brain.



Forced to admit the flame or burial

was small improvement, she--just having seen

Bodyworlds--offered plasticizing as

a compromise, and I was quick to agree,

delighting at the possibilities

of poses for my stripped-to-basics self

and looking forward to the chance to stay

in frozen action past my exit line.



Should I be runner, arms pumping, legs bent?

Or the opposite: reader, sprawled in a chair?

I could be spread-legged and beating my chest

in the bedroom, Tarzan, mouthing a silent whoop.

Maybe a lawn ornament, on one leg, pink

flamingo updated.  The foyer’s coat- and hatrack,

fingers splayed invitingly? Or, a dish

in bony hands, the usual servant at the sink.



But then I realized only one pose would do:

me in some corner of the house hunched over

a piece of paper, caught in mid-scribble, mid-scratch,

a real, unplasticized pen my link to the world,

just like now, this flesh surrounding me all

misdirection, coverup, a little Buddhist dew.



Ok, she said, but do you mind if I set you

out in the garage, no slight intended, of course,

but only a way of saying (as I rev

my engine hot to gad about) that poetry’s

meant not to be some still shrine where pilgrims

come,  remove their shoes, and bow, but rather--

souped up rod or trim sedan or limo--

a vehicle for getting to and fro?






               DRESS CODE


       “Please avoid noisy fabrics.”

              from guidelines for a Buddhist retreat


Please turn down the volume

of your socks.

*

A cacophony of trousers

riled the group.

*

We need yarn that speaks

only when spoken to.

*

The jackets began gossiping among

themselves about the vests.

*

A storm of polished cotton

was brewing, threatening

to drown out the song

of the silk undies.

*

Nylon bragged

of its World War Two origins

in New York and London.

*

Frayed cuffs

spoke in a raspy voice

like old men tallying ailments.

*

A lone spool of thread

in the corner practiced

the discipline of silence.