-
Mangham
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
I tell it to burn like a poison When my two children threaten themselves, Wall-walking, or offthe deep end Ofa county swimming pool, And with thousands ofmoons Coming over me year after year, I lie with it well under cover, The war ofthe millions, Through glass ground under Heel twenty-one years ago Concentrating its light on my hand, Small, but with world-fury. Mangham Somewhere between bells the right angles staggered And Mangham poised, sensing thunder, Something crooked in the straight lines ofhis brain. Chalk dust rose from his shoulders, lost more Weight, settled upward. The blackboard altered Its screech, and the teeth ofthe 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 OfCosines. He pressed the middle ofhis brow With a handkerchief, looking at all ofus As he stepped Quickly out ofthe room. In the center Ofthe 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 oflumps; Buckdancer's Choice / 226 He had raided the lunchroom icebox, and held A knotted cloth full ofsoupy 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 ofthe adolescent mind, Conceiving drunken constellations, Equilateral triangles, others ofthirtysixty -ninety degrees, traced by a seismograph, All figures melting from the icecolors ofhis 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 Ofperfection, 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 Ofbrain-lightning, the ceiling above me White with the chalk motes Ofstars from my shoulders, the night blazoned With the angles ofgalaxies 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 Ofhis death From explaining for my own good, from the good Side ofhis face, while the other Mixed unfelt sweat and ice water, what I never Mangham / 227 Could get to save my soul: those things that, once Established, cannot be changed by angels, Devils, lightning, ice or indifference: Identities! Identities! Angina That one who is the dreamer lies mostly in her left arm, Where the pain shows first, Tuned in on the inmost heart, Never escaping. On the blue, bodied mound ofchenille, That limb lies still. Death in the heart must be calm, Must not look suddenly, but catch the windowframed squirrel In a mild blue corner Ofan eye staring straight at the ceiling And hold him there. Cornered also, the oak tree moves All the ruffled green way toward itself Around the squirrel thinking ofthe sun As small boys and girls tiptoe in Overawed by their own existence, For courtly doctors long dead Have told her that to bear children Was to die, and they are the healthy issue Offour ofthose. Oh, beside that room the oak leaves Burn out their green in an instant, renew it all From the roots when the wind stops. All afternoon she dreams ofletters To disc jockeys, requesting the "old songs," The songs ofthe nineties, when she married, and caught With her first child rheumatic fever. Existence is family: sometime, Inadequate ghosts round the bed, But mostly voices, low voices ofserious drunkards Coming in with the night light on And the pink radio turned down; Buckdancer's Choice / 228 ...