A Walk in the Woods

When war left most of your platoonface-down in jungle muck,each shriek remembered slid a needlehot under your skin, bled into youa cyanotic stain. Into your handsyou took them first;beneath your fingers playeda sharp tattoo of grief.The more you saw flesh tatter on the wind,small shimmerings pinched out,the more you loved,the more you longed to shedtie, jacket, business shirtto give them opening to perchupon your matted arms, mountainous chest,and golden haunches.Then from the floor of the exchange,the larval swarm of traders at their work,the tapeworm numbers reeling whiteout of the entrails of the stiff machines,your heart, infinitely scaled,pumping to full extensionburst you forth. Now you bearthe mark of all the lost oneseverywhere; they burn toward you,cling to your tropic heat,flex wings upon your breast;they quiver at your knee,fold in your elbow, flutteringthousands of nameless friends,your body the ground of their continuance,a silent requiem of butterflies.© Kristin Camitta Zimet, from Take in My Arms the DarkSULPHURSWALLOWTAILABSTRACTM A R C E L I H U H O F S T A D T E R ’ 6 7Marc Elihu Hofstadter majored in French at Swarthmore. Heremembers “very little creative writing” but says one Frenchprofessor in particular, also a poet, inspired him. He holds a Ph.D.in literature from the University of California (UC)–Santa Cruz,where he wrote a dissertation on the late poetry of William CarlosWilliams. He taught at UC–Santa Cruz, the Université d’Orléansin France, and Tel Aviv University before going back to school atUC–Berkeley for a master’s in library and information studies. Heworks as a librarian for the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Hispoems and translations of the French poet Yves Bonnefoy havebeen published in Exquisite Corpse, Pearl, The Malahat Review,Confrontation, Talisman, Berkeley Works, and others and his essaysin Twentieth Century Literature, The Redwood Coast Review, RomanceNotes, and others. His first book of poems, House of Peace(Mother’s Hen Press) was published in 1999. He is a practicingBuddhist and lives in Oakland with his partner David Zurlin.O n R e a d i n g F r a n k O ’ H a r a ’ s 1 9 5 9B o o k J a c k s o n P o l l o c k i n 2 0 0 0When I first thumbed these still-glossy pages, Frank,your flesh was real and could quiver.I’d take the New Haven Local train to New York Cityto see the riotous abstract paintings at the Modern Museum,knowing nothing about the man who’d organized the shows.When I bought this book in the Museum storeyou were only an art scholar to me,not yet famous as a poet,and I was a kid—fourteen to your thirty-three.I wonder if I ever saw your broken nose in the lobby.If our eyes ever met.I like to fantasize, it’s fun, and besidesI love you, so I can’t be blamed.Not as I love my lover, but you’re special to me, Frank.You were the blade’s edge, laughter in the street,sugar nuggets.You’re these to me now and spark my poems.I touch your pages forty-one years laterand it’s a little like touching you.A gap of years still separates us, Frank. And death.But we’re getting closer.Someday we’ll have the same address.If you see me, wink. I’d be delighted.© Marc Elihu HofstadterTRAING. PAUL BISHOPM A R C H 2 0 0 115