How I Married Michele

make something from the skein unwinding, unwinding, something I could wear

or something you could wear when at length I rose to meet you

—Denise Levertov, “Something to Wear”

I

The first day of class she sat in the front row, but that was too close, she told me almost thirty years later. So at the next meeting she moved to the last row.

“I don’t remember you in the first row.”

“It was all girls—constantly crossing their legs.”

“You didn’t like sitting with girls?”

“The whole class was girls. There was one guy. Maybe three.”

“So?”

“You never once used the lectern. You paced.”

“This bothered you?”

“Let’s just say farther away was better.”

What I remembered: all semester she never raised her hand, never said a word. She agreed this was true. I went out to the garden and gathered some tomatoes and chard, thinking about it. When I came in for lunch, I said, “I’m curious. Why did you really take the class?”

“I love poetry.”

“Which is why you went to law school?”

“Objection.”

At the final exam, she reminded me, I told the students to write an essay on anything they wanted.

“‘Just make it interesting,’ you said.”

“Didn’t I suggest connecting it to poetry?”

“Anything we wanted, you said.”

“I was hopeful.”

“Hopeful about getting away to Paris with that trite blond.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

Michele is a redhead, exactly five feet tall, but she seems taller. She has excellent posture, thanks to ten years of ballet. From six to sixteen she worked under the demanding Madam Dokoudovska, whose Russian blood and smile were both thin and icy. Michele’s legs were beautiful—and still are—but finally not long enough to satisfy Dokoudovska. Moreover, her breasts had become voluptuous. “Enough!” the Russian declared, dismissing Michele from her passion.

In high school she played her flute (first chair) and, as a cheerleader, stood atop a pyramid of girls, her arms thrown out imploring the Raytown Bluejays to fight, and then she flew off toward the football field or basketball floor in a somersault.

“Caught by the other cheerleaders?”

“Usually I landed on my own, in a roll.”

“You were a tough cookie.”

“A dramatic cookie.”

“You struck me as shy.”

“I was a shy, dramatic cookie.”

The cheerleading lasted one year. She quit when her best friend asked her to, so that the friend could take her place.

“Seems odd for a friend.”

“It meant a lot more to her than it did to me.”

Her English teacher, Maryfrances Wagner, a poet, fed Michele’s love of reading. They became friends, the teacher inviting the student to family gatherings. An Italian family. Exuberance, food, color. A big change from the more measured Episcopalian rhythms and rather bland dishes of home.

Maryfrances encouraged her to write poems. This led to Michele entering a writing competition sponsored by the Kansas City Jewish Community Center. The poet Denise Levertov came to town to give a reading at the Center and judge the competition finalists. Michele’s entry received first place in the high school division.

“Would you let me read your poem?”

“It’s packed away.”

“What’s it about?”

“The man under my bed.”

“The man under your bed?”

“Yeah. He steals my Oreos and reads my mail.”

“And?”

“It’s a stupid, smartass poem. All the poems I wrote in high school were stupid and smartass.”

“Why are you mad?”

“I can tell good from bad.”

“Maryfrances and Levertov thought your stuff worthy.”

“Crap, take my word.”

I know Maryfrances. We met years ago when a college in Missouri invited her, Larry Levis, and myself to be part of a workshop for high school English teachers who wanted to learn more about poetry—especially contemporary poetry—and ways to approach it with their students. I remember Maryfrances’s enthusiasm in engaging the teachers, how articulate and gifted she was—far more than Larry or I—at supplying the kinds of exercises they were seeking. She helped them not only with pedagogy but also...