Approaching Intimacy: A War Story


He reaches across the empty space
On the sofa between them, and brushing her hair back
From her face, runs his thumb and forefinger softly around the rim
Of her right ear. She smiles, thinks this will finally lead
To the lovemaking she’s imagined all evening. It’s late
And they’ve been sitting on her porch listening to music
And drinking since dinner. She moves closer.
There is something he needs to tell her, but before
She can say: of course, or you can tell me anything—
He says he wants her to know what he has seen. And he begins
To describe the bodies of dead people, pieces
Of bodies, arms and legs, open wounds, bodies falling, bloated and floating
Just beneath the surface of dark water, the sight and smell
Of bodies rotting, bodies burning. She holds his hand in her lap,
Weaving her thin fingers between his as he talks.


****


After her brother’s body was smashed to bits in a car accident, she never saw
What it looked like. A newspaper photo showed the scattered remains
Of what had been a blue Ford station wagon, but the condition of the human
Bodies was left to the imagination. When she asked to open the coffin,
The pastor refused, saying she wouldn’t want to remember him
Like that. It’s as if we could choose one sacred image, forsaking all others,
As if imagination isn’t already doing its own efficient work
To complicate the picture. She can see her brother running backward,
Both arms raised to catch an impossible fly ball. She can see his greasy teenage
Fingers tucking a pack of lucky strikes into his shirt sleeve. She can see him drunk
And angry, throwing his fist through a motel room wall. She can feel
The strength of his ten-year-old arms boosting her up and over
A chain link fence. And she can see him waking to his death
In the back seat of that ford when the drive shaft comes ripping through
Metal and fabric and skin and bone.


****

The night he insists on telling her about the war, they’ve worked together
In her garden all day, and she loved watching him kneel to pat damp soil
Around the seedlings, putting them in one by one, his whole body
Intent on this precise and gentle act. Now he is talking about human skulls
And ears on strings and tongues and men’s and women’s bodies
Being mutilated in hideous ways. She pulls away from him,
Wanting him to stop talking. He says he still can’t explain—
Though he’s heard many theories—the common and ancient practice
Of disfiguring the enemy’s body, but he’s come to recognize
The impulse. To reduce a human identity
To its simple physical fragments ought to demystify the power
Of human wholeness. She is staring at him now,
Imagining the man she wants to love
Crouching over a still figure, one hand cradling the head,
The other bringing a knife down to the face.


****


After the sixth heart attack, her uncle was put on a transplant list,
And her aunt became obsessed with watching the nightly news.
When she’d hear of a car accident or a stabbing, the aunt barely listened
To the names; she thought only of the living heart
That might be cut out quick and sewn into her husband’s
Waiting chest. The doctors called the process organ harvesting,
And the hearts of shooting victims seem to be
The best bet. So when a local teenager was shot outside of town
By a rival gang member, the aunt was on the phone
While the boy was still breathing, pleading her case, asking for the boy’s heart
Before it was too late. Second-hand heart in place, the uncle began
To feel more tenderness toward that dead teenager than he’d ever felt
For his own children or his wife; he began to accept
The human heart’s fundamental capacity for brutality,
Its ambivalent appetite for connection, and the whole tangled self
Implicit in that one fist-sized piece of a boy.


****


The problem is, her lover had been telling her,
That in order to actually cut away
Part of another human being, you need to get so close
To the body that your attempt to separate any piece from the whole
Becomes an unlikely act of intimacy
Joining you forever to the person you thought you wanted
To be farthest from. Weeks from now, she imagines she’ll be scrambling eggs
And making coffee while he showers. She’ll smile and kiss his forehead
As he sits to eat, amazed at how easily his touch makes her feel
Strong and completely alive. Tonight she puts a finger across his lips,
Saying: no more. Please. After he leaves, she splashes water
On her face, lets it run cold over her wrists, barely breathing
Until her skin is red and the feeling almost gone.


****


Her brother once brought a man back to life
On a winding canyon road by breathing hard into the dead man’s mouth.
He tipped the battered head back, pinched the nose and pressed
His lips tight over the other man’s mouth
Making one body—for that moment—out of two. He was aware
Of the smell of gasoline and the taste of blood and alcohol and finally
Vomit as he sat up and breathed in as much of the night
As he could, then bent down again and again to the stranger’s face
Until there was a gasp and coughing, and they broke apart, lying
Flat on their backs on the greasy pavement, saved,
Exhausted and alone.

From Separate Escapes (Ashland Poetry Press, 2002).