also by sarah arvio

poetry

night thoughts

Sono: Cantos

Visits from the Seventh

translation

Poet in Spain

this is a borzoi book published

by alfred a. knopf

Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Arvio

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Names: Arvio, Sarah, 1954– author.

Title: Cry back my sea : 48 poems in 6 waves / Sarah Arvio.

Description: First Edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. |

Identifiers: lccn 2020048966 (print) | lccn 2020048967 (ebook) | isbn 9780593319505 (hardcover) | isbn 9780593319512 (ebook)

Subjects: lcgft: Poetry.

Classification: lcc ps3601.r78 c79 2021 (print) | lcc ps3601.r78 (ebook) | ddc 811/.6—dc23

lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020048966

lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020048967

Ebook ISBN 9780593319512

Cover photograph by Caracolla / Shutterstock

Cover design by Janet Hansen

ep_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0

In memory of Rachel Wetzsteon

and

for all suffering lovers

A Note to the Ebook Reader

Please note that line breaks within poems will vary across e-reading platforms. To experience the intended presentation of each poem, please experiment with adjusting the text size on your e-reading device or platform to the smallest comfortable reading size.

Small War

I thought I had left behind the darkness

of the heart that was a plan leaving it

behind I planned to enter the trance of

sensual peace and fulfillment that was

my plan But the best-laid plans I say and

pause thinking it better not to mention

mice with their trail of dark images strange

scurry into dark holes the sense of un-

cleanliness the gamey smell a small-game

smell Oh there’s a better word the game

of the heart small game that’s good too like small

arms and light weapons this is a small war

a small dark and secret war of the heart

Deer running fleet chased by the hounds

No not that game Heart war against all plan

thrusting out of its dark hole and

scurrying through the room of the life

Scurry or gallop the sound of horses’

hooves beating on a distant hill I’ve heard that

and thought they were running through my heart

Great gallop on the hill of a dark heart

Though war is too great a word even

“small war” when we remember the torture

chambers the real torture on the real flesh

the bullet piercing the flesh-and-blood heart

There are no words great or small to describe

the private torture of the hounded heart

Shrew

I hate my heart What is this wild and bad

renunciation I hate my heart Why

does it hurt me even now after so

much raking over after so much ruck

It’s hard to call my heart it speaking of

part of me that is almost all of me

because what is there that is not my heart

Tucked between my breathing lungs it beats

it breathes it is my thoughts What thought do I

have that isn’t folded inside my heart

Is there such a heartless thought I

don’t have one When I walk I carry what—

my heart on the stick of my body Or

my courage in the sticking place Oh screw

don’t I have the courage of my good heart

Is this my scarecrow longing for his heart

I’m scared of my heart the old rags and bones

the rage a rage for order pale Ramon

Even though I’ve raked my heart it rages

Beshrew me I know my heart is good Shrew

little sparrow will you come to my hand

Oh screw I eat crow I crow my heart out

Am I the shrew to it or it to me

To no one but my heart and it to me

Gosling

I am or I was

a small thing like a sparrow or a toad

or the offspring of something not so small

or the sound of glenn gould humming to himself

these sufferings of a small person wiping her nose

oh soul me

I am only my small humble self

heaving inward and needing to be nursed

a slip of a thing needing a nurse mother

a gosling needing a mother goose

a ghost mom to come down and be my mom

secretly where no one would gawk with envy

that I was getting more ghost than she was

I was my own goose not good at soothing

nurses should be soothers I was not that

having had no lessons not even a hand

or a handout no helping hand or heart

in the nursery or the gooseries

for hearts’ sake and souls’ sake stop sniveling

oh soul me I am dying to get up and fly

oh sorrow me in a hurry

to the heaven of goslings with their nannies

and sparrow chicks and tadpoles

chicking and poling and sparrowing

a tad too late to play but not too soon

Animal

I am very nervous in myself I

was always nervous as an animal

angling for its home and then homing in

toward a home but never finding it I

was that sort of lost animal though

animals are rarely lost We are lost

as they are not we are the burrowers

in our own dark mud when yes the light and

so on Not to be dark or obtuse when

the light is wonderful This wonder that

we should be so dark and lost when the world

was designed to be a home for us Or

were we merely its bad accident Or

did we come to its great beauty to mar

and obscure Or did we come randomly

without meaning or message brought along

by hunger viciousness And yes the beauty

that we never saw or that the vicious

never saw but speaking of myself I

tried to live in beauty and found it hard

even harrowing We are made to drive

at joy and not to strike and when we strike

we miss I am nervous as I said I

wanted all I struck at it and didn’t

hit or battered wildly and got a hit

Only enough to make me hit again

Lost hunter sad animal homing soul

Neck

This isn’t done Grabbing your girlfriend’s neck

isn’t done I mean it is done by god

often enough but not when I’m the girl

or the friend I love you with all my soul

and all my I don’t know what else to say

my friendliness and my girlishness

but by god my friend do not grab my neck

Neck with me nestle your neck into mine

I’ve been watching the necks of the geese

my geese our geese flying over our heads

and I’ve said goose wander in my chamber

You goose don’t be a gander don’t be a

geek Be a Greek be a pagan be

a lover of life of me of my neck

Grab my neck my shoulder or my breast

but sweetly if you must my sweet goose

or I’ll call the police Not that the Greeks

were any better at love than we are

always stabbing at their men and their gods

but my god better than the Romans

and their strikes at the neck their split necks

All they did was say do not do do not

do that and thwack off with their heads

So if you ask me what Greek is I say

give me a Greek over a Roman

oh romance romance it’s Greek to me

it was Greek to the Romans and to me

to my roaming heart and my Grecian

gods to my friends and my gods and you

you my silly goose and my strangler

Rat Idyll

You irascible rascal O my rat

O rapscallion of my most raving dreams

I had my sights on you idol of my eye

O rapist of my inner thoughts and hopes

roping me into your kaleidoscope

around and around around and around

enrapturing my every root and tap

O my satrap you said it I’m trapped

In my rapt joy I rally on and on

Sit down I say but you won’t sit down

I sat down and said sit down and rap

Let me rave you said let me rave and drink

Let me sleep I said let me go to sleep

O my scamp I’m sated—what a sad rap

Must never let you get my goat ever

Must be cool when you rave never get hot

never let you scapegoat me O satyr

this isn’t satire though it almost is

slapstick yes really a slap and a stick

I know what we need an artful escape

some far-out art and some far landscape

not a nightcap or a cup of icy noon

A slow boat to an island or an ice cap

the inscape of an I-land and you-land

Wood

The last thing I ever wanted was to

write about grief Did you think I

would your grief this time not mine Oh good

grief enough is enough in my life that is

enough was enough I had all those

grievances all those griefs all engraved

into the wood of my soul But would you

believe it the wood healed I grew up and

grew out And would you believe it I found

your old woody heart sprouting I thought

good new growth Good new luxuriant green

leaves leaves on their woody stalks And I said

I’ll stake my life on this old stick I’ll stick

and we talked into the morning and night

and laughed green leaves and sometimes a flower

Oh bower of good new love I would have it

I would bow to the new and the green

and wouldn’t you know it you were a stick

yes I know a good stick so often and then

a stick in my ribs in my heart Your old

dark wood your old dark gnarled stalk

sprouting havoc And now I have grief again

and now I’ve stood for what I never should

green leaves of morning dark leaves of night

Whorl

Then I spoke into the whorl of your ear

isn’t this love oh my warlock my lord

Would you call this a war or a quarrel

All those hard words heard in my ears

Our word hoard is harder than a hatchet

heavier than a heart on the warpath

I didn’t say you whored me no not that

I can hear you whooping in the love war

the warping of our words on the field of war

How will you have me if I will have you

How will you let me if I will let you

touching my forehead and my temple

fingering my forelock as you touch my skin

I wonder if a whisper is warranted

Will you hear me if I speak in low tones

a hue and cry will you hear me if I cry

Here here I mean will you have me here

linking the place with the sound of the word

with the love hoard heard in your ear

This is love isn’t it a war in your ear

love love a word in the whorl of your ear

Sage

O sage I know I am I am a sage

I know unkindness is a selfish act

a straight fish act or a furtive act

fish or fowl or a slice of the knife

In the word selfish have you seen the fish

I meant to write you a poem of love

green sage gray sage and sings the silver wind

wing me on the wind these were all my songs

The geese in their V’s are yipping like dogs

along the selvedge of the winter woods

There must be an edge to the self a hedge

against hell must be an edge or a verge

Here is the self-edge that you cut against

Here I am savaged I meant to be saved

O sage I know I am I am a sage

I know unkindness is a savage act

Is your heart assuaged Well mine is not

O sweet here I am whispering an urge

for the good life if goodness can be had

the great fields the geese the edge of the wood

What scraps can I salvage for the soup When

soup can’t assuage there is no love to save

Heart

I lay down and said will you kiss me and

then I cried the tears of the world for you

your heart broken and mine so broken

broken-toy bad and broken-spirit sad

Spirit is a strange word and then the word

broken—for a hard thing—“break a spirit”—

Have you thought what that means—“break a white wisp”—

though I don’t know why I say “white” when

it could be any color Broken heart

also defies literal truth Plump wet thing

and yet it breaks The truth is what I want

—literal truth refusing metaphor—

to get back to the redness of the heart

though I’ve never seen a heart in life

I feel it ache this is a literal ache

Your spirit life what color has it been

heart’s suffering what color is your stripe

white as a bag or a bone red as a rag

I wanted to believe and belief too

is hard Hard enough to break and it does

Nest

And then there came a day that was a day

a world of my wanting with you in it

and all the small creatures came to our side

mewing and cheeping as small creatures do

a day I had wanted for a long time

a small-creature hour in the life of our day

where there were many places to lie down

and sigh and sleep and cogitate and hug

a huge happening among the small lives

a little cuddle with a dream in it

a coddled egg an apron with a bib

a nest for nourishing the ragged nerves

O robin O rabbit O bat O tiny vole

all flyers and burrowers come to us now

through our heat ducts and tear ducts and chimneys

come to us with your small-world intentions

that place where only we know how to live

where no one else knows what we say and do

no one knows the crumbs or the flies we eat

or the silly songs we hum as we sleep

Aurora (or Ra)

Oh Aurora Do I live to be adored

or to be abhorred There’s the sun god Ra

who might have adored me God of the day

Adore adore and the word of gold: d’or

I opened a Door and you came in

one morning as a cold sun was rising

O Roarer I woke to your dawn my day

El Dorado my city in the south

Though I love your old gold I covet

some cold cash to warm me with

How close are the words warm and warn

And here is a warning Good morning

O my Aura Anything may come

O my dawn Am I a whore to fortune

I whored my joy for the harder days

but what I hoard is never joy enough

I saw the dawn rising so gold and so red

your golden wallet and how bright the light

Gold aurora that warmed me in your love

Cold aurora that warned me of your love

Puck

I said to my pontiff on the dark ice

wearing on his finger the jewel of ice

as I pondered the smoothness of the ice

I said to my grand high puckety-puck

pounding the ice on the dark pond

I said to my pal my pale fire my polestar

you tried to break me so you broke me

if you break me again I’ll break again

Is there a point you’re trying to make

as black as ice on the winter pond

I pander to your every pass and wish

You knocked my head off when I tried to speak

then knocked me again for being silent

I said to my pal look what you’ve done

you broke me once and you broke me again

Is there a point you’re trying to make

as bitter as winter and as ponderous

darling Puck you pushed me far too far

I slid and broke there on the other side

on my finger your jewel of white ice

the beauty of the darkness and the ice

Bodhisattva

The new news is I love you my nudist

The new news is I love you my buddhist

my naked body and budding pleasure

in the weather of your presence

Not whether your presence but how

Oh love a new nodule of neurosis

a posy of new roses proposing

a new era for us nobis pacem

O my bodhisattva of new roses

you’ve saved me from my no-love neurosis

You’ve saved my old body from the fatwa

Let’s lie down in a bed of roses

a pocketful that rings around the rosy

If this is the end of the world my love

let’s fall down in bed and die

Let’s give a new nod to nothing

Let’s give a rosebud to nothing at all

How I love the new roses of nothing

O my bodhisattva of nothing

boding I hope no news but this

For our bodies and souls I hope nothing

but the weather of us in our peace

Algarve

I won’t go with Jason for the fleece

for all the algae washing on the beach

gray and silver green and silver gray

all the plastic bottles and old twine

beaching up onto a bed of sand

But there’s something rhythmic in the art

an algorithm for an argonaut

an I’ll-go rhythm or I’ll-go-not

I said I’ll go with you anywhere

and I’ll come there too if you are there

for where is anywhere if you are there

the washing of the waves along the beach

all the plant life of the ancient sea

the dune flowers silver gray and blue

These are the ornaments of what I mean

the organza of a revelation

the orgasm of a something-rhythm

in the gauzy morning near the sea

Our good bad all garbled algebra

which is the “binding of the broken parts”

which was the offering of Al-Jabr

ergo I’ll go elsewhere if you are there

Sides (or Sidereal)

You decide please what side you’re on

the sidereal or the earthen side

or any other side that sounds like love

or sounds like a sound of turning in bed

toward your side or my side toward me as

I sleep or don’t sleep turning toward you

and touching the star side or earth side

along the slope of your shoulder or hip

sidling in and breathing through my nose

turning my face to the side inside your heat

sleeping like that beside your whole world

both sides the inner and the outer side

both sides the stellar and the earthy side

This is the insidious unreal thing

this is the side you really can’t decide

the stuff in your starstruck or dirty dream

speaking from the sidelines during the night

talking roughly to me during your dream

Oh dirt dirt Life turn back to my side

this is real the side of the real our bed

please turn toward me real in the night

Wreck

When life is a wreck

with reams of remorse

and thousands of replies

can all the roses and wintergreen and heart

Oh reckless heart

heartwrack

Is it realizable to start again

with our faces wearing their young green hope

A white rose on the bedstand

white curtains ruffling

and the riffling trees

I turn to you and say this: ruffle me

What is this ruffle? an inner stir

stirring through my life

as if it were

my life

It may be something else

for no one knows

where any stir comes from

or any riff

where any love comes from

or how it comes

Wrecked heart

wracked heart

All the roses and wintergreen and heart

Crow

My only hate my only love

you like

to chant

chant cant chant cant

Oh my clarion of a summer day

carrion squawk of your old heart

I never cared you carry on

under the blue sky of a summer day

A hell of a day a sigh for a day

halcyon cyanide day

lying in a field on a summer day

calamitous calm gaze

Your can’t do and nothing else can do

while I cavil I do I do

You collapse

in my lap

Oh my lapsed love

you old cuckoo you

Rook me of my heart

oh crooked heart

Oh crackpot heart

oh my clochard my wanton clock

I do not want your do-not-care

I excoriate your do-not-care

I core out your heart

curse you old crow

I know that you care

Peas

I sat in a field full of peas and fed

once long ago

hulling the fresh green peas

and eating them raw

from the palm of my hand

Each a green

explosion

a kind of green dream

in the peaceful field before my life was lived

fielding the future

as I grazed the peas

I can hear myself saying

please oh please

pleading for something I didn’t yet know

Had I known

I might have said

Give me some fresh green peas

give me a handful of peace

Let me graze

in the grace of the field

Peace peace!

would you hold yours please

Did I say peace and grace

I ask is the peaceable possible

Fey

I’m fey

no one says this anymore

or this feckless

falling into a faint

phantom

my phantom life

the rag of fantasy

the drag

as I feinted

not meaning to lie

I feel the lure of failure

the feeling

that all has failed or will fail

not the allure

maiden fair maiden

no one says this

when the word

won’t come through

not the word

or the hope

and no one says why

fie! No one says this

fo-fum

or this

my life is fallow

that feeling

do you have it sometimes

my life has fallen

fallow

it doesn’t follow

that the next phase is up

I fell into a foul temper

no one says this

a sick faint

sycophantic

the figment not the allure

Rimbaud (or Desert Love)

you must walk your thousand miles

Rimbaud walked till his eyes turned white

his mother was a wretch

therefore he walked his thousand miles

boys with wretch mothers must walk their miles

oh love you need your desert eyes

white searing desert eyes

served but not deserved

through the white desert for many days

in a white sandstorm

watching the sand bodies roll and turn

in the white desertifying desert wind

desertification occurs

after the dereliction after the derision

dear love your derelict desire

corpus delicti

you must walk your white miles

carrying the body of your offense

Silk Road

May I relax

from the long longing

I have long had

in the seat of myself

now late in my life

in the seat of my love

sagging there

in the soft couch of himself

late late at night

lipping lisped kisses

into his cheeks and his neck

and saying

whatever silliness

sallies from myself

as long as it is soft

and silly and silky

Far down the Silk Road

we have come and gone

across the Bering Strait

and through the unbearable

sailing on the couchboats

with their square sails

on round pegs

across all the continents

of fury and drink

and sickness and dismay

gusting on and on

in the cheeks of our need

with the wind slacking

and our faces slack

sagging there

in the couch of ourselves

a whisker in a kiss

a kisser in a wish

where all that we say

is couched in a whimsy

snapping our fingers

to the sound of a gust

Shah

Pasha pasha  you came into my life

and I painted you with my passion

I couldn’t make the passion go away

though I wanted to Oh shah my hummingbird

humming something a human wants to hear

something like those words that have no sound

pushing through the passion with a shout

Push push  here you are doing it again

some color in the pit of it

something sham in the pith of it

something like shame in the myth of it

or a puzzle deep in the paint of it

Something pithy and pained in the human bird

as though the words weren’t made to say aloud

You paint me with pain this is what I know

and the shame is where it’s pushing from

Pshaw  let the bird hum and the hum hum

some human and humiliating thing

Oh passion have patience—do a pas de chat—

tell me your story shah show me your heart

Ether

In the ethereal fields

the real other realms

where what is real is air

where air is what we are

your elbows my elbows

the four humors

the four funny bones

where what we are we are

a rumor of humors

bodily or bellylaugh

where we laugh and laugh

at what we always are

down on all fours

laughing in our hats

your more and my more

all that we were and are

calisthenics of the heart

athletics of the soul

aesthete of ether

either or the other

of what we were and are

Kissing Her (or Morning Glory)

You’re angry as a dog

or an angora cat

An anguilla with gills

all eels do have gills

You’re angry as an eel

you do not feel your heart

you only pump your gills

I’m surprised that eels bark

sometimes mew like cats

right before the hiss

And hiss rhymes with kiss

short for Kissinger

who was instrumental

in the making of a war

the history and hisses

of a gala glorious war

While you were kissing me

the day was such a glory

Trinkets

First you gave me the jewels

and then you gave me the scars

Why did you want to twist my wrist

right where the bracelet turns

Why did you want to wring my finger

where the ring might have fit

All I have now are the jewels and scars

on the scarp of my life

I’m up or down though I don’t know which

I know that I’m injured and scared

I’ve got them now in a burnished heap

gaudy old glamorous trinkets

with stones and gems from inside the rock

and an old glug of memory to drink

And will there be more glamor

and will there be more drink

in my brace of garments

as I scuff up and downtown

carping and glowing

There’s not much to give or say

I’ll have some glug and get some sleep

and some life love as deep as a drink

not my life’s love but love for my life

I will drink it even if you can’t

Sinbad (or Symbiotic)

I’m agog in the synagogue of love

and the sin is I don’t know my Sinbad

Is he Gog or Bes or the seven dwarves

He has been an assault on my senses

a leap and a slam and a somersault

It was in summer that we fell in love

Love and hate he can’t get them straight

we should be sailing home in a schooner

He needs some synergy between his selves

instead there’s ergonomic confusion

He was erotic and he was erratic

he was scintillating and then savage

It’s a symbiotic thing my bio and his

I’ll need an antibiotic to fight him

That’s a symbol for a powerful drug

No I think I’ll need a synecdoche

I’ll need a singer in my synagogue

The sin is I’ve already left the dock

and I think I’ll need the seven voyages

Szymborska could write this better than me

I’m banging on my cymbals and crying out

Saudade saudade is what’s coming for me

I have to go now—though how I don’t know

Body

part bone &

part bomb

yours is all sore

& ready

not a tin can

or a cocktail

yours is atomic

a bomb

made of your atoms

I have a diamond

you have an atomizer

of the anatomical

& soul

being

concording your soul

atoms

into a sole

bomb

for atomizing my soul

with its adamant

gleam

I’m toeing around

& avoiding the pulse

so as not to jig

the trigger

or tip the jigger

this is a soul bomb

solely for me

arraigning my brilliance

why do bombers

bomb

a beauty body

Hitchcockian

stop staring stop staring

wagging your head and talking lies

why don’t you do some staring at the stars

even your cock is a crowing liar

trying trying to hide your cry

the cry of a bad hatching

that hatched you

as you are

not as you should be

can’t you fall down the hatch of your heart

into the hole of the hell of it

can’t you hitch your cock to some high pole

a maypole for maying

not dismaying

can’t you hate your hatcher and not me

a hatcher is a mother

yours was a hatcheck girl she had all your hats

and would not give them back

oh somber sombrero

and your heart is the worse for it

even your soul is hitchcockian

though he had a bowler

you have a howler

give yourself a little heaven

as you should be

not as you are

go hitch a ride on a star

Aguántate

Did I want a gloveor was it love

a globe of love a lobeno not a glove

I wanted a globe a worldI got a glove

Take off the gloveTry on some love

This is global and localThis is my life

I want your bare handson my lobes

instead you’re lobbing mea lot of hell

So you like making lovewith gloves on

How bad it feelsas hard as hooves

I’ll give you the beefI’m all beat up

Too much to bearmy gloved boy

Here’s the skinnyI want some skin

but love mewith your both hands bare

Oh beglovèd boyturn a cheek

Tu Mi Vinci (or Hang)

You hang me on the hanger

of your anger

like da Vinci’s triangle

and vinci is vanquish

and vanquish is

like anguish

and hang

is what we do

to criminals and clothes

Is it a crime

to hang round your neck

staring in your eyes

and kissing your lips

Here I am hanging

naked and splayed

I’m hung up on you

you’re hanging me up

There’s no other angle

I’ve flung them all out

You’ve taken my self

and you’ve hung it

in the triangle of you

where I’m dangling

I’ll go away

in a new set of clothes

for a cocktail or a crime

does it matter

but please let me down

off your hanger

Oh love let me be free

of your anger

I’ll hang a round sign

Now I Am Mine

old words

you can’t get the hang of

Sad (or de Sade)

So it’s over nowthat’s what you say

How sad to saywhat isn’t so at all

nor should it beI’m saying this to you

I’m saying I love youand you love me

It’s sheer sadismto say this isn’t true

which is what you sayat least once a week

wanting to persuade meto be sad like you

My desideratummy sole desire

O saturnaliaof sad desire

I love you satanicand sweet as you are

siring and stirringmy distraught desire

I’m your Sadieyour sweetheart your girl

How could I hate youbecause you’re sad

Sad to say to say and doI’m sorry

you’re sad and sadisticyou’re sorry too

Or I think you’re sorrythat’s my sole hope

Monsieur de Sade was sadwe all know this

That’s how he gothis satisfying name

And aren’t we allam I not aren’t you

wanting to livea sane and hopeful life

Oh my Sade How sadyou are sad I am

Truly sad to seeyou are as you are

Shoe

I was going to meet my own death

and it stood me up

Or that is I stood up and said not now

Some days I know I won’t stand for it

Can you stand the thought of being dead

some days I think I’ll take it lying down

Sometimes it’s good to take a stand

though I think I want a standard-issue death

Shoe in shoe out without a horn

or play me a horn as I go and come

Or maybe not you but someone else

whose job it is to usher me forth

Stand down I don’t know what this means

Stand up and soft-shoe across the room

The issue is well do you like your life

Oh hand me a tissue I do want to cry

There’s no such thing as a stand-alone shoe

There are always two to cover feet

Think of not knowing how to feel

think of that while dancing on your heel

Death might not be up or even down

it could slip in sideways it could shuffle

It could stand very still

like a life on the stand of the world

Do hand me a tissue or a handkerchief

I don’t know whether to wave or cry

I don’t know whether to live or die

it could slide sideways after all

Like two shoes dancing in the living room

or two heels hopping in the dying room

Handbag

I felt some desire and I lost my cents

it was expensive to feel so much

I lost my sense and my money I did

not consent though it was consensual

It was a con and it cost me my self

I was selfless I was trailing a scent

I was moaning but not for the money

and that’s a mistake I lost my sole take

and now there’s nowhere to stake a claim

I’d put a stake in his heart but I can’t

O Bacchus will you dress me in grape leaves

I’m back to the bar to begin again

and needing a quaff of some rich stuff

and some hair dye and a bewitching scent

and all that is sensual and cunning

without a cent or sense in the world

and nothing in my handbag but my soul

Tanager

This was the year I saw the tanager

flitting out from behind a tall tree

like Tanny Le Clercq wearing scarlet

and then turning she twirled and was gone

cutting a tangent through the sky of my life

and the effect was as tangible

as a trip to Tangier

This was the year

of bright change

the year of the dress

the lovely fire-red dress

and black shawl

that would take me

to the sunset or sunrise

And it moved in me

like Tanny Le Clercq

fire tones leaping

in a fiery thrill

Wouldn’t you live

for a tangential thrill

that goes to the skin

and bones and sex

to all the bright points and

colors of your life

I had seen it in books

—the tanager—

a bright black-winged cry

bringing me up

to its tablet of joy

its template of joy

its plateful of fruit

The tangerine tanager

that should be its name

and how do I eat it and dance it and do it again

this once-only moment of life

Red Dress

It’s wrong to live wrong I was thinking this

and wringing my hands I wrung my hands

Wasn’t it right to live right and to write

about the right life rather than living wrong

and writing about the wrong life Which is

righter which is wronger The thing is

if you have the wrong life you don’t want

to tell thinking always that somehow you

will right it Righting and writing it’s a kind

of redress a new dress I’ll put on when I

rewrite my life I’ll run out and get it now

while there’s still time a red dress for joy

a red dress for redress and I’ll dress you

down as I walk out the door You’ll ring

and ring but I won’t rush back I won’t

write back You’ll be right and I’ll be

wronged and that’s what I’ll tell if I get

the time but not to you you won’t be told

You can read my redress in the papers

I’ll be out on the town in my red dress

Peacock

It sounds like a part of the body

doing something that it has to do

not like a vegetable or rooster

more like the male part of the male body

riffling its wheel flaunting its eyes

every feather the figure of an eye

many like the arms of a Vishnu

many like the breasts of Artemis

O heaven and all the lotuses

the hues of all-prismed reflection

with a keen that pierces the garden

And this is the bird with the name

that’s also the name of a penis

that is peeing the peacock peeing

Why don’t you meet me in paradise

the place of the parrots and dice

the place where we go to die and sing

the place where we go to sing and die

Apparently it’s all pure there all joy

pure as my heart when I look at you

right here in the throne of the pleasures

The peacock tilts its fathomless eyes

and then folds its great fan and departs

Garden

You could say a garden is a garden

but guard against the place where anything

is what it is and nothing more A garden

can be avant-garde or not avant at all

or from a vantage that never mattered

except to the gardener and no one else

It could be a place where Adam and Eve

were happy though not yet fulfilled

Nor would they ever be if history tells

us anything at all If the bible can be

called history Let’s say it can because

it belongs to the history of our souls

And so there they stand naked and the snake

and the penis are one and the same

It can snake through your garden and take you

places where the flowers sometimes go

to that bliss of fragrance and bee-buzzing

or else can be a hisser or a hater

or a pisser and really mess things up

and mow over your pretty violets

And while you are there guarding against

the gorgeous or the garish or whatever

something insidious is going on

and insinuating and undulant

Much as you may love and guard your garden

there is no protection from its power

En garde! Kiss the gardenias and hope

Regal

There are some violets in the grass

purple and pretty and in the grass

and now I notice that the violets

are the color of a bruise

They are pretty but not quite a pensée

and violet we know is not quite purple

They are a posy of my violation

or the bruise is the color of violets

and you are posing as the lover boy

who brings the posy of all pure joy

This is a position a person can take

almost as joyful as anything

and voilà this is my enviable life

the veil of my lovely and loyal life

This is the question I’m trying to pose

about life behind a veil of invective

I don’t want to say a vale of tears

or a walk through the valley of death

Shouldn’t my life be inviolate

not kicked and insulted and royal

the purple regal of the royal house

Aren’t all our lives made to be holy

and royal almost always is violent

The queen of the grass is deposed

Nonpareil

for Linda Ollerenshaw

How I wish I could be something else

I seemed to change I had to have changed

and yet plus ça change plus c’est pareil

I wanted a cup of dark tea and a nonpareil

I wanted a life without a parallel

a peerless and unparalleled life

made only of chocolate and sugar

on a dark night pearled with stars

and I got it just like everyone else

as though getting what was coming to you

could really be what anyone gets

I was on the parallel bars turning

over my own self and then turning back

but that was many years before I changed

into the one I am now who’s turning back

through her own life to find the nonpareil

as the past smokes up from the dark tea

Did I get it just like everyone else

with a sip of dark tea and a nonpareil

Am I both the same and something else

or had I gotten it like no one else

exactly what was coming and nothing else

Sheepfold

It’s so cold here and there’s the snow

he doesn’t like snow he’s from the tropics

there’s ice to be precise there are icicles

he wants it hot he wants the tropics

he keeps saying it over and over

she is thinking that this is a trope

or de trop de trop

she does know she doesn’t know

he does know he doesn’t know

say this all fast and it will be as snow

as white and cold and as ephemeral

all of their truths will be as snow

the trees are black in the winter woods

and now they are passing the sheepfold

white sheep and black sheep mingle together

they are a tropism all turning one way

and fold is a word that she desires

fold and wool are things that she desires

but there is much cry and little wool

the sheep are running as a herd

their little hooves pounding the white snow

she needs to be careful she thinks or she’ll die

of exposure out here in the cold

the ram is out ahead there’s only one of him

but here they are now the two of them

you snowed me she said which meant he had lied

Rodeo of the Rose

It’s like I fell off the horse of my life

I was horsing around and he bucked me

I went over sideways or backwards or

I don’t even know how I went but I

went It’s like you don’t know your own horse

It’s like you’re riding along and he rides you

He keeps at it and at it till you buckle

and break a rib or a toe or a heartbeat

Never mind that I wanted to be soothed

and suckled never mind that I wanted

to ride and ride replete with life joy Ah

ah Ay ay all the sighs and gaspy breaths

when you’re riding full out on the joy path

But there are folks who can’t bear the joy

the rippling riveting enchanting joy

They’ve got to buck you till they flip you

They deride you and they deride themselves

Whose horse was this anyway Wasn’t it

mine Or was there someone else somewhere

leading them in and handing them out

glad-handing the folks at the rodeo

A grand master of disaster and desire

carrying a whip and a full-blown rose

The Rose

You took me

in the bloom of my life

& unbloomed me

not the unbloom

of deflower

or the

denude of undress

I was dropping

my petals

& saying

yes yes

There are only

so many petals

they won’t last & last

& the hub of the flower

is as bald as a bone

& now I am

the node of disarray

the nub of despair

I was love & beauty

I was plucked in a pose

I was taken from a posy

I was not loved I was loathed

Bed

I haven’t got a fingernail or bed

or even the bed of a fingernail

and I was hoping that you were the nail

that would hang me up on the joy wall

and I was hoping you were the finger

that would point me toward the rainbow

as the rain bowed and slashed and all

the colors stood still in the singing wind

I haven’t got a mailbox or a box

for my files or my fingernail filings

I haven’t got a box of photographs

or a graph of the days of rage and pain

or only on my heart which hurts me

I haven’t got a file to cut off the chain

or a ring I wanted a ring and a song

a bed with a head a heart and a soul

though there are so many places to sleep

I have to say you hit the nail on the head

and that was my nail and my head and now

I am dead there are so many places to sleep

I have fallen from the joy wall and died

Hard Place

I won’t leap off the edge though people do

and how sad it is for all of us

that they didn’t know how to live

when life was so full of all of life

which is what life is full of always

for when it is full of something else

something like ugliness or lies

then it’s also life but not life

and this is a distinction hard to make

like a rock and a hard place

and the rock would be for leaping from

and the hard place for staying in

if staying can be said of hardness

or leaping can be said of rocks

and all I wanted was to be rocked

to be soothed and rocked in a hard place

and it isn’t the hardness that does it

there is nothing that is hard in soothing

it should be easy but is hard to find

it should be soft soothing should be soft

even in a hard place this is the truth

there is no place as hard as a rock

and nothing as soothing as rocking

and this is one of the paradoxes

that come to the hardest of lives

from the softest of thoughts

there’s no place so hard as a hard place

Some Hand

I saw him go out handsome in his suit

in his shoes and suit so handsome

he was hiding something in his hand

when he turned and went and he said

I’m going now I said will you give me

a hand and he was walking out in his shoes

and his summer suit into the spring day

and I thought he feels better today he’s

wearing his lovely linen summer suit

it suits him and so do his shoes and then

I went upstairs and I saw in his room

that the suitcases were gone and so were

his hands and some of his clothes and

some of his shoes and some of I didn’t

know what It’s shoe in and shoe out

handsome devil with something in his hand

and it’s the soft touch of the nest of

his hand or it’s the tough stuff in the stuff

of his hand and I said will you give me your

shoe and he said sure and hit me on the head

with the shoe and sure it didn’t hurt it was

barely a slipper this was a slip-on and slip-off

this was the soft sole of the dapper world

Tap-tap dap-dap or dip down I kept saying

why don’t you dip down into your deep self

and tell me why you’re so handsome and why

so devilishly angry there’s a story there

but it doesn’t suit you to say what it was

and now you’ve got your hand on the knob

in your dapper suit off into the spring day

Go & Go

one person in the universe

can be the universe

one turn or one verse

like turning over in bed

or turning in a dance

the unique & united

one niche of your life

the one single hub

of your universe

the unicycle that wants

another wheel

or the cyclonic

disruption of all the lines

the body flying off the cycle

& rolling on the road

oh pour me some please

a big unison drink

a big gulp for two of us

staring in one glass

as the cycle turns

& each turn says

life love life love life love

a niche or a nest

in one old bed or old tree

all the arms going up

& stretching in sleep

& all going around

like branches in a wind

all go up in the end

all go down

they go down in the end

they go & go in the end

Sponge

Soul like a dirty sponge that soaked up all the dark bits

from yours all messed up and mixed in

with the dirt of the days the old hairs and hatefulness

Oh my god I knew there was hate in the human world

but I didn’t know it was the job of my soul

to clean it up How can I clean it up if my soul

is the sponge sponging it up In the end it doesn’t

go anywhere except into my dirtier and dirtier soul

And I say well crying will clean it up but then I’m

bent over crying because my beautiful sponge of a soul

that lay in the depths of a cool warm aquablue tropical

sea with little fishes flitting about in their exquisite

jewel colors and rays of sunshine raying through

has been used to sop up an angry man’s leftover

cruelty Yes cruel does sound like jewel and there

should be a jewelty How can I squeeze it out I’ll

need a new sponge but I can’t throw out my soul and if

each tear is one drop of an aquablue tropical sea

maybe I can cry back my sea It’s not so easy

to clean a soul some say weeks and some say centuries

acknowledgments

Love and thanks to the late Mark Strand, the late C. K. Williams, Edward Hirsch, Page Starzinger, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Dennis Nurkse, John Koethe, Alice Quinn, and above all others, my editor, Deborah Garrison.

Thanks to Victoria Pearson and Todd Portnowitz.

Appreciations to Janet Hansen and Pei Loi Koay.

Special thanks to Roy Skodnick and Frank Gillette.

I would also like to honor here the late Ralph Angel and the late Leslie Wolf, my first poetry teachers.

Thanks to Jesse Littlejohn.

Special thanks to the editors who published these poems, some in earlier versions:

“Algarve” in TriQuarterly, final print issue

“Animal,” “Gosling,” “Rat Idyll,” “Shrew,” and “Small War” in the Boston Review, winners of the 2008 Boston Review annual poetry contest; “Small War” and “Animal” also on Poetry Daily (poems.com); and “Animal” on howapoemhappens.blogspot.com

“Bed” on Plume (plumepoetry.com)

“Bodhisattva” on Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day (poets.org) and in The Best American Poetry 2015

“Handbag,” “Neck,” and “Wood” in The New Yorker; “Wood” in The Broadview Introduction to Literature and in its Concise and Poetry editions

“Sage” and “Whorl” in The New Republic; “Sage” also on bestamericanpoetry.com; “Whorl” in Laberinto, the Milenio cultural supplement, translated into Spanish by Víctor Manuel Mendiola as “Espiral”

“Red Dress” in The New York Review of Books

“Wreck” in Knopf’s Poem-a-Day

a note about the author

Sarah Arvio, the author of night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis, Sono: Cantos, and Visits from the Seventh, and the translator of Federico García Lorca (Poet in Spain), is a recipient of the Rome Prize and Bogliasco, Guggenheim, and NEA fellowships, among other honors. For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught at Princeton and Columbia. She lives in New York City.

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