THE UNNAMING

1.

In streets of teeth and shadows... in steely streets rained on... on... on; didthat:

It was raining and it was muffling and leaves were muffling and they did no crick
and they did no shiver and there were four bushels of apples but no bushels of
tomatoes because the tomatoes grew worms that day and corn caterpillars
andandand I... as it rained on, I am as it rained on... he picked, did not pick, chose
not to pick:

there were three bushels of apples.

Cursed, the wonder as. I saw. Yes. Beneath. Yes. He touched his forehead as.
Cursed. I saw. Yes, I saw. As the thunder as. He. He didn't work, to wanting to
work, to worklessness, to nothing, to not thing:

the apples.

2.

He lay stretched, the face of an artisan, black-framed with beard, coin-eyed,

candle-headed, lips drawn, teeth hidden, his yellow teeth hidden, grainy, prickled
cheeks where beard gave way to pale-hued skin and hairs, shorter and shorter, gave
way to empty pores and the lines of his cheeks fell to the far edges of his eyes and
the lines just penciled, hardly lines, flared from his lids a little way to the temples,
to thick, healthy hair, thick strokes brushed back from the temples, each hair at the
edge of his forehead brushed back to the full, wavy forest that flowed black and
full to the satin-fuzzed edges of the white pillow where brushed, immobile, his
head lay surrounded by candles, the face of an artisan, with coins for brazen pupils,
staring, burnished eyes.

3.

Cough, many coughs, the ceiling belched coughs. One man coughed, it hit the
cieling, down; another man coughed. We prayed. Light danced with specks. Saul
was on the road and his horse was jumping. Jesus was in the clouds. There was
light but the light danced with specks. One soldier held the horse. He had a helmet
with cheekplates that went down over his jaws. Jesus was in the clouds but only
Saul looked. One soldier helped Saul. His arms were strong but Saul's arms
reached to the clouds. The light danced with specks. Saul had a beard. Another
man coughed.

4.

Bless me that who you were for that which I did it has
been never since my last:
the door closed, the cross floated,
the little window opened.

5.

deaded deaded died death deaded

descend as... descent descending as... I saw... he, the streets, the teeth of a shadow
haunting the street... the streets made of machines made of smiles and hollows...
the shadows haunting the streets... rerise to descend rear and slip black-curled as
burnt paper... shuff and shuckle, crick, crick, churn as burnt paper... eye of a dog
no friend, neither is a hand, neither the star nor morning be... be warrens, be sleep
slept, be winter, be rerise, rerise to descend, to rear and muffle, shuck, shuck and
shear... he did not pick the apples...

6.

....I did that to him yes I did that to him and now he is deaded and yes I did that to
him and he is not just gone he is taken and I did that to him yes.... He was walking
down the steps and she had one arm and Danny's father had the other and he was
moving one foot slowly at a time very slowly until he was down all the steps....
Jenny was crying and she was holding on to the lady's long brown skirts and to the
white cord with knots that was tied around the lady's waist and I wasn't crying until
I saw how gray his face was like the color of the day when it rains and then I
almost did but I did't I didn't.... She looked at us and she told us to go back inside
the room but he didn't look at us and then she asked Danny's father what was best
and he said she mustn't worry the car was right outside and they would go and that
would be best then the other lady with the long brown skirts and the white hat that
looked like a box and the long shawl from the square top of her hat and the bib like
when you eat lobster took me back to the room and her friend took Jenny back to
the room and we heard the door shut and then Danny's mother came in and she said
that she would fix lunch and she told Jenny not to cry because everything would be
for the best...

...and I said, I said yes, I did that to him and then he did that what was done to him
when I.... Yes, I did that, I did that, yes, he did and then....

7.

yellow was it, yellow was it

His head was not yellow it was brown and one vein crinkled on one side and
another vein crinkled on the other and when he spoke they both crinkled. His teeth
were white but his robes were yellow and he did not cough but whispered. His
hands were crinkled but there were no veins in his hands and when he started to
whisper he reached in under his robes:
tick
and from all over, from each brown stone to the tops of the vaults and the pillars
and from the big windows with painted Saul and painted Jesus and the light
dancing with specks, from each man coughing when the cough came bouncing to
him from the top of the echoing roof, to the rows, rows, rows of pipes and pipes,
you could hear what he whispered when his hand went tick
under his robes:

8.

'An artisan, his arm, this very arm, shaped these faces, the imprint of his soul in
tortured Mary's eyes, marble rang and sung, sung high and echoed sung that the
breaching forms His story told, in memory, all memory, His forms, let us praise the
hallowed, the figures of this gestured plaster, of a piece, the smelting of them, the
tawny arms, the taut limbs, the faces and we tell, we read the wringing of them, the
tunneled portals in grimace and found grin in soft ways reflecting, the light,
weather-seasoned, grained, the painted sacred coming of the all blessed light, in his
very eyes, the unchanging eyes, he saw, he was an artisan'

yellow was it, yellow: tick.

 9.

Voiced the cringing sputter.

pretend Dominie Dom in the sputter.
The cross floated.
The gruffing throat,
bags and bags of marbles pursed,
come in, you with your threats and promises,
you in your chains and wonders,
you the dancing fallen.

-Bless me, Dominie.

The little window opened.

10.

I thought about the word died and the word dead and I wondered how come it
wasn't deaded and I asked why it had to be died and she said she didn't know why
it had to be but that it was and then she started to cry like I never saw her cry
before and I was scared because she couldn't make her mouth work she could only
cry and Jenny cried that way and I cried because I was scared and because I didn't
know what was done to him when I did that to him when I did that to him I did I
did I did that didthat.

11.

He came in... the car tracked and trayed, trayed and dank... sullen, the grainy earth
in trays and heaped in trays... he brought to grow, sponge and loam... the corn
untasseled, tagged... he came into the yard and he dug four heaped heaps smelling,
limed, frost-white and he dug... the manure smelled sweet in the rain, sour in the
sun... the pokes and prodding of them, the swelling them, under the rich, black
skin... over up and over... groomed them, trained them, beneath the apple trees...
the apple trees... unpicked... the choice... he came:

12.

I was looking at the books on the shelf and the lady was sitting next to the shelf
and she asked me if I did that to him and I said yes and she said I think God does
that to him very much too but I didn't say anything and then she said you know
God sometimes takes the people he does that to because he does that to them and I
didn't say anything and she said sometimes God takes the people he does that to
first just because he does that to them most and I didn't say anything but then I said
He wouldn't take him because He just wouldn't take him because he was mine and
then she went away.

13.

and I the other that I did that I did the other and I that I did

beneath the sand beneath the plush soil beneath the sand

his hands are laying curled the black-rimmed nails curled

14.

Toil the long streets. Turn. He came. Lazy rubble white and pitted, worn and
dazed; the flipped tabs up, gray and lazy gray and white mottled stone. The stone
touch, the touched stone, wonder as, the sweeping trees, bare, descend, brittle bare.
The plunking, plunking, plunking, as the rain, the oiled road in the rain, descend.
Rivulets of rain ran in the clefts of trees. I walked very slowly to the place. It
looked like the flowers but it wasn't, it was a heap and no flowers grew beneath.
He didn't grow just like no one picked the apples and then they fell and they didn't
grow. He rested. His stone was green and he rested and nothing grew.

15.

I reach into my pocket for the thing, the bright edge thinly there, the thing and I
hold it in one hand and I take it with the bright edge up in the palm of one hand
and I put the other palm to that palm with the bright edge up and I pray and I run
my palm along the bright edge up, praying, and I don't cry, didn't cry and there was
a little bit of blood, a little, then a little and it ran down my palm, down my wrist
beneath the sleeve of my shirt and it drips a little drop, drip, plunking, plunking to
the ground, to his ground from my palm praying and then I stand and I put my
palm on the stone to wipe the blood that's coming and look up, down the long road
descending to the place and the black-frilled gate at the top of the long road and the
slabs turning straight and every-which-way wet in the rain and I look down and I
can not see the blood on the stone because the rain has taken, the blood has been
taken by the rain...