DESK: AN ADDRESS

8 5 R D E S K : A N A D D R E S S S T E P H E N Y E N S E R And broghte him sauf upon a table Which to the lond him hath upbore. –Gower, Confessio Amantis, VIII 1 Well, then, I guess not desk as much as table, If one has old romance in mind (again). And this one’s true: ‘‘true as a tree,’’ we’d said In Kansas. It’s steady, firm, dependable, This partner that’s supported one for – what? – These last four decades and more of drifting, If not like Apollonius shipwrecked . . . It’s what one rides on – writes on, that is – daily, Or nightly, if too often weakly – weekly, I mean. But worth the writing on? Surely not. Though in one’s ideal study it would be A writing desk, a secretary, crafted Like a Chinese treasure box of quartersawn Sapele, fragrant still when rubbed till warm, With drop-dead grain, and tiers of cubbyholes, A drop-down desk, blind doors, dovetailed drawers, Compartments hidden – a repository For secrets, in a word. Indeed, a kind Of wooden analogue of that word’s warren Of associations: a place for items That need to be secluded and secure, Related to seduction and sedition – And self itself in several antic guises. 8 6 Y 2 When you lay dying in bucolic Kansas (And ‘‘learning how to make this next transition’’), I sat here in Los Angeles, dying, So much more slowly, to get ‘‘your poem’’ right, The dictionary (a faithful ‘‘tonic diary,’’ Our quick friend quipped, who knew my weaknesses Inside out) spread open on this desk – Plunderable and pale as you, it struck me, In that moonwashed wheatfield near Wichita, My elbow awkward, painful On ground and grain an awkward elbow lamp Lights up again where I reworked the words Lying here on a finish ruined long Before (like that of many of the poems – Well, all of them – at least those far enough Along to be thought of as ‘‘well-begun’’). The dictionary told me desk connects Quaintly with discus, tool used, as in a harrow, To till the soil. (Ah, I could see you wince Less from the figure than the ‘‘scholarship’’ – Itself now derelict, a grounded vessel.) And disk, from Greek dikein, to throw, stems From Indo-European deik-, to show, Also to speak out frankly, solemnly, As though to show and tell were still one thing, As certainly they must have been in Eden, Before contrariness, old ouroboros, Could disengage its head and make a tale. See also dictionary proper – and addict (Since we were both ones, so to speak, to ‘‘art,’’ While ar- meant something like ‘‘to fit together’’), Edict through maledict and on to verdict, From dedication to Eurydike. I thought I’d bring you back from France (or Hell), Where we had gone to write and paint, to tell And show, as though we were in truth a unit, 8 7 R Not from the start mismatched catastrophes. But one day when I turned around you’d gone From our hill town into the Pyrenees To unearth meanings of the Black Madonna. 8 8 Y 3 Our rural rental featured ‘‘un grand bureau Antique.’’ But this is just a desk. Some plain Pine planks – plain as your Great Plains soft wood co≈n – One simple-minded yet divided drawer, Contents packed tight: calculator, ruler, Magnifying glass from the OED Now boxed up out of reach above the computer, A superannuated address book (Listing your second husband and your children), Staple extractor, rubber stamps still used Too often, and a few scored, time-worn tablets (Little tables!), binder clips, erasers. Its hardwood legs – maple, with memories Of sappy youth? or ash, omens of A fiery end thus far escaped? – have staunchly Borne up my own to help me get to texts So dearly purchased, once prized reference volumes, The ‘‘blue book,’’ the bulb blown blind, the errant spider Camped in a corner of the desert ceiling. O copain of my pains, O beast of burden, Animal cheap and charred by cigarettes, Scarred with culaccini from those sweating Libations, cold and...