Watching Last Year at Marienbad at Roger Haggerty’s House in Auburn, Alabama
There is a corridor of light
through the pines, lint from the Spanish Moss.
There is the fallen sun
like ice and the twit of hidden birds
in our common backyards,
snakes threading the needles.
I walk the block past
Krogers with its exhausted wives
hovering over bins of frozen pork.
No one else has shown but their chairs are here.
We sit flanking the projector.
The opening sequence reminds Roger’s
3-year-old daughter
of the wedding cake she ate last week.
It reminds me of my first train in Europe,
the windows, soft implosions
at the entrance of tunnels,
air carving its intricate laces….
The child has fallen asleep with a doll
on the sagging couch.
Here, nothing’s mysterious—books
and newspapers. The first time
for anything is the best,
because there is no memory
linking its regrets to drop
like bracelets in the grass. What
a shabby monstrosity spring
actually is! Remember
that park bench, the frail wisteria….
