Heather McHugh
The Missing Glove
I
A glance is a blow–
a force you feel —
or feel he feels, the more
your car obtrudes into
his lit proximity–the one
arms-length of curb between
these traffic cataracts
contrarily aflow, that now
slow to a crawl, to a pause
of purring steel– and bring the likes of you
now face to face
with the likes
of him.
II
Perhaps you fear
that forwardness of his,
and that unarmored gaze; his own
near-ominous
near-odious
near-intimacy.
III
With a touch you make
your door secure—
an all-but-in-
offensive click.
What now, with all this
Naked stretch of red-light
Set against us? Set about
your pantomime — the one
in which you cannot find,
at length, in the glove compartment,
something you are missing.
IV
But there hasn’t been
a glove in there
since nineteen thirty five—you can be sure
the light will change before
a fucking glove appears! A shrug
might work. (“We only came out
for a ride!”) Or how about
a sing-along? To tell the fellow
that we care. “We do not scare,
we do not stare. We wish to spare
the ones who plead. For they themselves
would rather never
be regarded, in such need.”
V
Look up, and you see red.
Look left and you behold
Him holding up his sign.
Look right, so no one notices how he
Has touched your handle, turned your head…
VI
You turn your head and then you find
the feeling’s everywhere. It’s in the guilty-
looking truck, it’s in the passing of the passerby,
it woos a woman on her break, unmans mechanics
at the shop, besets a tourist at his rounds, and sneers about
the sonneteer. No matter what we do
the world is struck—with shame
or sorrow, dark or bright—it wants to find
a way inside. The mind
is closable. But not
the sound or sight.
Stay Already
What is it?
Possibly
The present?
Is it downtime,
Yet? Is it still?
Couldn’t it just settle
For being plain
As day, as Saturday,
let’s say? Why must it always
Be becoming?
Never one
Conclusion we
Can call
Foregone, though
Even soon is done.
*
A bind. What is it?
Valentine’s? A same
Boat, to be in. The sixty-
somethings every hour. Let’s
count. One thousand
One. One thousand two.
Time’s up. In other words,
It’s always now
And never. (Flowing,
Flown, it’s damnably
Mistakable for space. We row
And wait. The craft’s
A creature of its own.
The current’s moving.)
Original
What was the gender
of the foot’s original and rightful
owner, so to speak? One
wonders whose foot is it now,
just speaking legally.
Only the foot
washed up. Where is
the rest? All rocks
in this vicinity.
Does this one left
match any of the five
right feet in this coast’s ever-
more-macabre panoply?
Is every sixth a part
of some hexameter? How much
in every composition is the silent part.
No question. Not all poetry
is song. But I can tell
the dancer from
the dance. Each year the Mayed
will be Decembered. I would make
the littlest of her metatarsals be
hereafter and herewith
remembered.
Some Sums
1.
If you begin with nuns, there is
I am. That’s both
The last name and the first.
The middle name is That.
2.
Then there’s arithmetic.
The one and one and one
That don’t make one.
(If we give Mom her due
3.
There’d be another person of
Divinity, the grammar of its drama.
Hail the Holy Ghost. I love him most.)
Dad, so as not to die, wants Junior
4.
Sacrificed. It’s downright Greek.
Little souvlaki, who made thee?
Some of the sums require
Component individuals be counted
5.
Into one big cattle car of a
Conceivable totality, while others find
In every oddball several fallen eights. A number
Of infinities. What manyness is man.
6.
A woman can contain what she will be
Contained by. His and her denominations
Hammer numbers to a door, in the name of
Names, in the battle of the sum, of the some,
7.
Of The Somme and all the Summiteers.
In sum, we find the parts forever streaming through the wholes,
Which all go streaming through some other parts they are
A party to… et cetera. It’s one big Being-fest, or Seeming-swirl,
A poker night the mind keeps trying to have a hand in, but
Can never get a head of (or a bellyful). Thank
The Lord the Author
Has a sense of humor,
Even though the reader weeps.
Heather McHugh loves nature and art, was lucky in having been paid from time to time to have conversations about literature, and has stayed alive to enjoy hitting 70.