When Tony Hoagland Does a Kind Thing, and: 30 Pieces

When Tony Hoagland Does a Kind Thing

In the hot bookstore in the glittering city,     he takes no hostages. We droop, slain in our chairs,the last syllable of the last poem

hanging in air like the puff from a musket,     like the washboard warp of soundafter a thrown knife finds its target in the tree,

like the flash in the murderer's eye     as he pulls his fist, calloused fingers snaggingall the way, from our right ventricle.

Maybe God made us so we could die like this,     or rise from such death to loud talk besideliterary postcards, word-a-day calendars,

those bound headstones of Balzac     and Jorie Graham. Maybe God made usso we could rise to commerce and the buying

of Hoagland, scores of us queuing for a book     and signature, chattering our death songs,adjusting our halos like convicts

at the Parousia, new to forgiveness.     The woman in front of me, thirty-eightcopies in her arms, tells him, Last night,

I nearly drove to see you in Mankato.     I would have loved to hear you twice, but Ihate that town. That's when his eyebrows arched,

and his forehead wrinkled with lines     that could destroy her, an invisible wavewashing across his face like the shallow

breath of Satan. Would he tell her last night's host     was standing behind her? Would he note a scorpionjust landed on her ear? Everyone who goes there

says the same thing, he said back. I wonder     if anyone really lives in Mankato, or ifit's just a place where people hate to go.

After the waters parted, God told Moses     he owed him one. All the fishing villageslay ruined. Red Sea resorts would never

seem the same. When the mean writer made nice     for once, we stood halfway to free and clear.Milk and honey called to us without their

variable rates of interest, and Pharaoh wept,     which, as most people know, was not in character.When Yeats said we must grow into our masks,

he didn't think of Tony Hoagland, who,     three days out of Houston, finally put onlong sleeves, who, despite a hundred invitations,

to Manny's Pub off 19th Avenue,     to Lucy's Club on 5th, stuck with Diet Cokeand metaphor, like a road gazing back

at its motel, like the Man in the Moon     three minutes after perigee, dwelling onall that time he'd have to spend now swinging

toward planets he didn't even know, pushing away     from us as if pretending he might suddenly let goof Earth. Impossible, of course. He was

the moon, or the face of it, at least. That meant     he was stuck with us, smiling or frowningeon by eon in our direction. And things

could always be worse,     like in some river towns he knew.

30 Pieces

Four to bribe him out of jail till dawn.One more for a deposit. Sevenfor the titty bar, gin, that red back boothwhere no one spotted us, a lap dance

built for God. At the all-night club, ninefor jazz and barbecue. One for onelast moon. Sally, Eve, and Joan still trolledfor final throws before the night was done,

but we had time, grief, big plans to keep,world poised for the sun, like stone, to sneakacross us. We still had eight—enough foreggs, a copy of the Post, his bribe

back in for three. For one, my bit of rope.