Dana Gioia - 99 Poems

six vaulted rooms stocked with the great estates,

bin after bin of legendary names,

Château Margaux, Latour, Lafite-Rothschild,

a prodigal accumulation formed

on such a scale he could have entertained

Napoleon and half his Grande Armée.

I chose two bottles of pre-war Petrus

That probably cost as much as my month’s rent.

Clutching their dusty necks, I closed the door,

And told the saints, “I could get used to this.”

They didn’t condescend to give an answer.

That night we drank in the high paneled library,

a great inferno blazing in the fireplace.

Naked Diana stood in tapestry

above us on the wall. Below her, Mara,

stylishly overdressed, refilled our glasses.

Resplendently the room reminded us

that beauty always bears a heavy price.

White tiger skins lay stretched across the floor.

Martyred Sebastian twisted on a pedestal.

Even the dusty books were bound in leather.

Mara loved having me as audience.

She sat there, half illumined by the fire

and half in shadow, spinning out long stories.

They were as fine as anything in books.

No, they were better because they were true.

She was a connoisseur of Schadenfreude

and was especially wicked in describing

her former lovers — imitating them,

cataloguing their signature stupidities,

and relishing their subsequent misfortunes.

(I’m surely in her repertory now.)

At first I was embarrassed by her candor.

I felt more like a confidant than lover,

but gradually I understood the motive—

even she needed someone to impress.

Life was a contest. Mara was a champion.

What good was winning if no one noticed?

Of course, that night we drank too much and argued.

She strode off, slamming doors theatrically.

I sat still, slowly finishing my drink,

feigning indifference — just as she would have—

and then went to the other wing to sleep.

Let her find me, I thought. Let her apologize.

She won’t like sleeping in this house alone.

The room was cold, and I was too annoyed

to fall asleep. I stretched out on the bed,

still wearing all my clothes, and tried to read.

Believe it or not, the book was Shakespeare’s sonnets.

What sweeter text for wounded vanity?

Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing.

I’d found an old edition in the library,

and from sheer spitefulness I’d stolen it.

That night each poem seemed written just for me.

What is your substance, whereof are you made ,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

I hope this explanation makes it clear

I wasn’t sleeping when I saw her enter—

Mara, I thought, mad at being ignored,

coming to make a scene. But, no, it was

a handsome woman in her early forties.

I thought she might have been a housekeeper

come in from town to check up on the place,

but why was she so elegantly dressed?

I started to explain why I was there.

She didn’t seem to hear and turned away.

Could she be deaf? I didn’t want to scare her.

Something was wrong. I couldn’t see her clearly.

She seemed at once herself and her own reflection

shimmering on the surface of clear water

where fleeting shadows twisted in the depths.

I found it hard admitting what I saw.

She seemed to be a ghost, though that sounds crazy.

Oddly, I wasn’t scared — just full of wonder,

watching this thing I knew could not exist,

this woman standing by her dressing table,

translucent, insubstantial, but still there,

and utterly oblivious of me.

First to be haunted, then to be ignored!

Her back toward me, she started to undress.

Now I was panicked and embarrassed both.

I spoke much louder. She made no response.

Now wearing only a long silk chemise,

she turned toward me, still strangely indistinct,

the fabric undulating, as if alive.

I felt her eyes appraise me, and I sat

half paralyzed as she approached the bed.

Here I was face to face with a dead soul,

some entity regathered from the dust,

returned like Lazarus from the silent tomb,

whose mere existence, right before my eyes,

confounded my belief there could not be

an afterlife. Think what this meeting represented—

a skeptic witnessing the unexplained.

I could have learned the secrets of the dead

if there are any secrets, which I doubt.

So how did I address this revenant,

this traveler from the undiscovered country,

who stared at me with dark, unblinking eyes?

I caught my breath, got on my feet, and said—

nothing at all. The words stuck in my throat.

We stood there face to face, inches apart.

Her pale skin shined like a window catching sunlight,

both bright and clear, but chilling to the touch.

She stared at me with undisguised contempt,

and then she whispered, almost in a hiss,

“You don’t belong here. No, you don’t belong here.”

She slowly reached to touch me, and I ran

leaving behind both Shakespeare and my shoes.

Mara was still awake when I arrived.

The lamp was on. The fireplace ablaze.

And she stretched naked under satin sheets.

“So, you’ve come back?” she yawned with mock ennui,

then added with a smirk, “You weren’t gone long.”

I didn’t say a word of what I’d seen.

We used to sleep in one another’s arms,

our two slim bodies interlaced like hands.

That night I held her, feeling our hearts beat—

first hers, then mine — always out of sync,

and in the dark I thought, I don’t belong here ,

I don’t belong here. Slipping out of bed,

I quickly dressed, and what I couldn’t wear

I left behind — the clothes, the books, the camera,

no longer mine. What a surprise to first feel

the liberations of divestiture.

I moved with such new lightness down the stairs,

watched by mute saints and marble goddesses.

Then out the door. I closed it quietly.

The lock clicked shut. Good-bye to both my ghosts.

I made it to the county road by dawn

and hitched a ride on an old dairy truck.

“What happened to your shoes?” the driver said.

“No, better yet, don’t tell me. Just get in.”

I climbed in, and one road led to another.

And now I’m in your bar. That’s probably not

the story you expected from a monk,

delivering brandy from the monastery.

Not all of us began as altar boys.

I’ve been there fifteen years. I like the drill—

Poverty, Chastity, and Growing Grapes.

The archbishop calls my port a miracle.

Don’t tell His Grace, but I still doubt there is

an afterlife. That’s not why I stay there.

This is the life I didn’t want to waste.

I.

Just look at me. Isn’t it obvious?

I have no style. I’m just a human blur.

On me expensive clothes look second-hand.

They droop or sag. The color’s never right.

I wear the wrong apparel to the party.

I pick the dullest item on the menu.

Each haircut brings some new humiliation.

That’s why I always loved to visit Tom.

He had the perfect sense for what was perfect.

He never wore a sports coat or a shirt

That didn’t seem exactly right — not just

For him but for the time, the place, the people.

It wasn’t just his clothes, but how he smiled

Or shook your hand or listened to a joke.

I’ve never seen a person comparable,

Except in movies of a certain era,