Poems, 1957–1967

MANGHAM

MANGHAM Somewhere between bells the right angles staggered And Mangham poised, sensing thunder, Something crooked in the straight lines of his brain. Chalk dust rose from his shoulders, lost more Weight, settled upward. The blackboard altered Its screech, and the teeth of the children were set On edge. Above our doped heads the ceiling whitened As the part in Mr. Mangham's hair Lost its way; a gray lock fell; Behind him as he turned, the Law Of Cosines. He pressed the middle of his brow With a handkerchief, looking at all of us As he stepped Quickly out of the room. In the center Of the high school a sound arose from us, A hive sound, amazing, increasing. I tore up my note To Serena Hill, and leaned and spoke Boldly to her in person. At the threshold Mr. Mangham appeared with a handkerchief Full of lumps; He had raided the lunchroom icebox, and held A knotted cloth full of soupy cubes Dripping down his gray face :held it Left-handed, lifted his good Right arm. The signs appeared again, The blackboard filled With crazy proofs, Lines wavering on the powdery blackness, The dark night of the adolescent mind, Conceiving drunken constellations, Equilateral triangles, others of thirtysixty -ninety degrees, traced by a seismograph, 224 All figures melting from the icecolors of his chalk. It should be in a tent in the desert That I remember Mangham's last day In that class, for his cracked voice was speaking Of perfection, sphere-music, Through the stroke that blazed in his mind As our hive toned down And Pythagoras howled For more ice: it should be in contemplative sand Or in a corner that I ought to sit On a high stool, Mangham's age now, On my head a conical hat, a dunce cap Covered with moons and stars and jagged bands Of brain-lightning, the ceiling above me White with the chalk motes Of stars from my shoulders, the night blazoned With the angles of galaxies forming To a silent music's accords, Proving once and for all that I have no head For figures, but knowing that that did not stop Mangham for one freezing minute Of his death From explaining for my own good, from the good Side of his face, while the other Mixed unfelt sweat and ice water, what I never Could get to save my soul: those things that, once Established, cannot be changed by angels, Devils, lightning, ice or indifference : Identities! Identities! Buckdancer's Choice 225 ...