Dana Gioia - 99 Poems

When heavy snow is falling in the morning,

And I awoke to see him standing here,

Waiting in the doorway, his arms outstretched.

“I’ve come back to you,” he said. “Look at me.

Let me show you what I’ve done for you.”

And only then I saw his skin was bruised,

Torn in places, crossed with deep red welts,

But this time everywhere — as if his veins

Had pushed up to the surface and spilled out.

And there was nothing in his body now,

Nothing but the voice that spoke to me,

And this cold white light pouring through the room.

I stared at him. His skin was bright and pale.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.

“Please, go away.”

“But I’ve come back to you.

I’m cold. Just hold me. I’m so very cold.”

What else could I have done but hold him there?

I took him in my arms — he was so light—

And held him in the doorway listening.

Nothing else was said or lost it seemed.

We waited there while it grew dark again,

And he grew lighter, slipping silently away

Like snow between my fingers, and was gone.

That’s all there is to say. I can’t explain it,

And now I’m sorry to have bored you so.

It’s getting late. You know the way upstairs.

But no, of course not. Let me show you to your room.

I.

“This must have been her bedroom, Mr. Choi.

It’s hard to tell. The only other time

I came back here was when I found her body.”

Neither of us belonged there. She lived next door.

I was the accountant sent out by the State

To take an inventory of the house.

When someone wealthy dies without a will,

The court sends me to audit the estate.

They know that strangers trust a man who listens.

The neighbor led me down an unlit hall.

We came up to a double door and stopped.

She whispered as if someone else were near.

“She used to wander around town at night

And rifle through the trash. We all knew that.

But what we didn’t know about was them. ”

She stepped inside and fumbled for a switch.

It didn’t work, but light leaked through the curtains.

“Come in,” she said. “I want to show you hell.”

I walked into a room of wooden shelves

Stretching from floor to ceiling, wall to wall,

With smaller shelves arranged along the center.

A crowd of faces looked up silently.

Shoulder to shoulder, standing all in rows,

Hundreds of dolls were lining every wall.

Not a collection anyone would want—

Just ordinary dolls salvaged from the trash

With dozens of each kind all set together.

Some battered, others missing arms and legs,

Shelf after shelf of the same dusty stare

As if despair could be assuaged by order.

They looked like sisters huddling in the dark,

Forgotten brides abandoned at the altar,

Their veils turned yellow, dresses stiff and soiled.

Rows of discarded little girls and babies—

Some naked, others dressed for play — they wore

Whatever lives their owners left them in.

Where were the children who promised them love?

The small, caressing hands, the lips which whispered

Secrets in the dark? Once they were woken,

Each by name. Now they have become each other—

Anonymous except for injury,

The beautiful and headless side by side.

Was this where all lost childhoods go? These dim

Abandoned rooms, these crude arrangements staged

For settled dust and shadow, left to prove

That all affection is outgrown, or show

The uniformity of our desire?

How dismal someone else’s joy can be.

I stood between the speechless shelves and knew

Dust has a million lives, the heart has one.

I turned away and started my report.

II.

That night I dreamt of working on a ledger,

A book so large it stretched across my desk,

Thousands of numbers running down each page.

I knew I had to settle the account,

Yet as I tried to calculate the total,

The numbers started slipping down the page,

Suddenly breaking up like Scrabble letters

Brushed into a box to end a game,

Each strained-for word uncoupled back to nil.

But as I tried to add them back together

And hold each number on the thin green line

Where it belonged, I realized that now

Nothing I did would ever fit together.

In my hands even 2 + 2 + 2

No longer equaled anything at all.

And then I saw my father there beside me.

He asked me why I couldn’t find the sum.

He held my daughter crying in his arms.

My family stood behind him in a row,

Uncles and aunts, cousins I’d never seen,

My grandparents from China and their parents,

All of my family, living and dead,

A line that stretched as far as I could see.

Even the strangers called to me by name.

And now I saw I wasn’t at my desk

But working on the coffin of my daughter,

And she would die unless I found the sum.

But I had lost too many of the numbers.

They tumbled to the floor and blazed on fire.

I saw the dolls then — screaming in the flames.

III.

When I awoke, I sat up straight in bed.

The sweaty sheet was twisted in my hands.

My heart was pounding. Had I really screamed?

But no, my wife was still asleep beside me.

I got up quietly and found my robe,

Knowing I couldn’t fall asleep again.

Then groping down the unlit hall, I saw

A soft-edged light beneath my daughter’s door.

It was the night-light plugged in by her bed.

And I remembered when she was a baby,

How often I would get up in the night

And creep into that room to watch her sleep.

I never told my wife how many times

I came to check each night — or that I was

Always afraid of what I might discover.

I felt so helpless standing by her crib,

Watching the quiet motions of her breath

In the half-darkness of the faint night-light.

How delicate this vessel in our care,

This gentle soul we summoned to the world,

A life we treasured but could not protect.

This was the terror I could not confess—

Not even to my wife — and it was the joy

My daughter had no words to understand.

So standing at my pointless watch each night

In the bare nursery we had improvised,

I learned the loneliness that we call love.

IV.

But I gave up those vigils years ago.

My daughter’s seven now, and I don’t worry—

At least no more than any father does.

But waking up last night after the dream,

Trembling in the hall, looking at her door,

I let myself be drawn into her room.

She was asleep — the blankets softly rising

And falling with each breath, the faint light tracing

The sleek unfoldings of her long black hair.

Then suddenly I felt myself go numb.

And though you won’t believe that an accountant

Can have a vision, I will tell you mine.

Each of us thinks our own child beautiful,

But watching her and marveling at the sheer

Smoothness of skin without a scar or blemish,

I saw beyond my daughter to all children,

And, though elated, still I felt confused

Because I wondered why I never sensed

That thrill of joy when looking at adults

No matter how refined or beautiful,

Why lust or envy always intervened.

There is no tabula rasa for the soul.

Each spirit, be it infant, bird or flower,

Comes to the world perfected and complete,

And only time proves its unraveling.

But I’m digressing from my point, my vision.