Yılmaz the Scientist, and: But I Used to Be a Saint

Yılmaz the Scientist

We drink bad lemonade at the Star Caféand he says I like the weatherwhen it's 23 degrees centigradeand Nalan comes to me with just a …

a hint of smile? I ask, and the world nodsand the boys here at the Star Café sayin unison: a hint of smile. Done with the badlemonade, we walk toward the Heaven

Apartment Complex and he—from nowhere—asks if I believe in Paradise and I saylook at that woman on the fourth floor.I can't see her face but I know she's sad,

those yellow towels are sad, those bluesheets faded to the color of September sky.

I make poems but Yılmaz the Scientist—this man who needs Nalan and weeps—

says Carl it often rains. It rains in Izmirand it rains in Diyarbakır and everywhereand it might even be raining now.I tell Yılmaz it rains on Paradise

and he applauds me once for truthand twice for the poetic weight of that Rain on Paradise, which amounts to no morethan a fallen branch one might slip on,

a careless one who counts nothingwith her fingers and nothing whatever.There are no barometers in Heavenand the barometers on Earth are broken.

But I Used to Be a Saint

Twenty centuries of warhave made me small,

still. I am merely a sign now,plastic letters scrubbed by a man

before breakfast: PAUL'SAUTO REPAIR (269 E. State—

"Call Us If You Collide").I'm not fond of it and in winter

I'm very cold, but life on Earthalways has been fragile,

wrought with whim, and it's betterthan signifying a diner:

"Eggs Benedict 5.99" or"Have a Stack with Endless Refills."

I know endless, and I knowthe tragedy of bowling alleys

in Omaha and laundromatsin Carson City and bakeries

in Cleveland. Everywhere my nameand maybe that's better

than the book I'm called inwith the Corinthians,

those lazy farmers who never gotthe metaphors, the artistry

of all that labor I did for Him.My dream now—my only dream,

perhaps—is to adorn a boutiquemotel where lovers come and go

in moonlight, eating peachesand making poems of their bodies.

I am old enough to know thatthat's what life on Earth is for.