Jesse Ball - The Village on Horseback - Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

Learning to be alone, well — that’s the bell tower.

A child may have it — and then it goes away. You feel their small hands.

They consume the very air.

But no one blames them. They are children, we say—

as if measuring the distance a body will fall.

Stones don’t carry their own weight.

That’s why they’re heavy.

They are like impressions of another’s sadness—

coming with nothing, you leave with nothing,

but we who despair are borne aloft.

Have you taken two knives and tried to cut one in half with the other?

I am like that when I’m hurt. I can’t even

hold the knife-handles — I don’t even recognize them.

I hold the blades and cut with sharpness into sharpness

and into my own hands.

We are so fond of our shadows.

There it is, we say when we see it.

There it is, my shadow.

Seeing your shadow is like having a conversation

when someone remembers something you once said.

It’s like getting a letter, like waking on a boat.

We shouldn’t really have shadows. Nothing

explains them, not really—

not why they’re our own.

Will you sit with me, braiding?

I learn that tarpaulin is made from scars

and that oil cloth is carded sealskin.

I am always learning and I don’t care very much what’s true.

The skin feat — yes, — fares well without truth.

Unbuttoned like a coat, it fits as well with your best gallantry.

It is out in the sea with the long swimmers,

not when they’re brave, but when they’re weak,

when they’re crying, with water in their mouths,

out of sight of land, despairing, wishing themselves

seals.

But not the safety of a seal, no, the terror of it—

the wholeness of the world like a gray marble.

The sea is rising and yet we swim still deeper.

Our houses really are on stilts.

They really run on long legs of chickens.

We smell men hiding in buttons and would devour them—

or are you afraid to eat a human?

Are you so simple? There are crimes,

but that’s not one. To eat a human?

Birds hunt all along the cliffs.

Our mythologies are numberless.

Did someone tell you all the tales were told?

I know another yet unsaid.

Shall I say it — already

another gathers in its place.

Myths are not a swelling of our lives—

they are not gold and lead.

They are sense—

the width of a board that you run along

from roof to roof

the street so far below.

Scarves pretend that they are nooses.

For them also the skin feat.

For them a white tinged joy of honeysuckle pressed to the mouth.

How long they wait, through a dozen summers,

through the growth of limbs, through boxes,

wardrobes, cupboards, shelves.

Finally, about the neck.

One can’t imagine what that’s like,

to be tied fast about a neck and gently there

to learn one’s nature.

Were you once the hair on a sheep?

Can you remember so far?

You must behave as if you know what the others know.

But who are they? Did you even see them enter?

The skin feat is not a matter of consensus.

About this, no one will agree.

It is in spite of everyone. It is a weak arm that can’t be bent.

Your mother sews you into a blanket.

Your father adjusts his hat.

The town gathers to see you off.

While awaiting the skin feat,

the audience convenes in rows and aisles.

But the theatre has been set fire!

It is burning to the ground.

Everyone races out. Six or seven are killed,

and one a child. But were they real?

Can you judge that? I am so slow in judging

who is real.

Perhaps they were just wriggling fish — or puppets.

Never again! the authorities say,

no longer can the skin feat be performed in this town.

They do not see that they are dancing wildly

in their best clothes.

And from atop a statue, a crow observes

and mutters; his beak is amidst feathers of no color.

For there are no colors inside a fire.

The elegance of older days is a matter of precedence.

Majesty has nothing to do with being clean!

I could sew a pretty countess into her dress

and myself into my skin

and we could run laughing, pulling

the one upon the other—

and what would it mean?

I should think a manual would be more forthcoming.

The skin feat is all intuition

like the moment of an arrow striking.

No one is shooting arrows—

they are just slamming violently out of the air,

driving into every surface — there’s no shelter.

Barbed arrows — they can’t be pulled out.

Life is just that—

emerging into dying. But you knew that—

were your parents not pioneers,

not the children of pioneers, no?

Build a house where there’s no one to help you;

bury children;

or are you confused about the cost?

The skin feat comes only at great cost.

Its veins and nerves are bruises and broken bones

its melody the holes where teeth were.

Does it sound like a gray affair?

No — it is all wisps of light.

25,000 mornings, and every one leading promptly into afternoon.

This is the skin feat — to hold yourself so gently

that you do not go to meet a friend you love

because you are remembering

the edge of something, and feel presently it will come.

Each time it happens, the world is wrought

where you are—

bells break in cold air.

Is it so small that you are disappointed?

I think you are not reading

through a noose.

No one is any better at saying what a feast is.

It’s just the days you haven’t eaten

hitting together like the bones of a necklace.

Are there really nations? Are there wars?

I had supposed we were all just pinned beneath rocks

on a long sandy coast

with birds to peck out our eyes.

We want so much to rise in the tumult

and feel ourselves grand and helping those who are

hurt—

but we are between the walls of the house

where the world is made—

and can do nothing for the others.

Are you one of those who feels north is north?

Or do you suppose we orbit nothing in a void?

Is meaning itself a cancer — a lesion — a symptom?

Or can we learn to speak in symbols and disguising

our hopefulness

perish truly at the moment of death?

It is a chair that you have often passed

but never think to sit in,

this well-upholstered yellow chair

with thin legs.

It is crouching in its own space,

and counting quietly.

The saints who say that birds are angels—

they are so confused!

They themselves ate bread so long,

they have been good to others so long—

well,

we can plainly see the birds eat the bodies

of other birds.

Why, I am running so fast in this narrow lane

that I cannot stop.

I cannot even look back — not with my face.

And so, yet again you say, when asked,