Suicide

. SUSAN FROMBERG SCHAEFFER

In prayer.

I tell you, everything dreads the fire.

And I will cry over spilt milk

As if I were spilt milk

Until they all are put out

And I tell you

You don't have the slightest idea

Of what it all means.

SUICIDE

I

The drama of suicides, then?

Your own body, eternal and white,

Marble-sleeping and white.

The others who carved you

Around you perpetually

Their heads bent down

Like flowers, like flowers

Under a hail of reproaches

The angels who loved you

Buzzing around them like wasps

Tiny mouths, wasp-size

Biting into their ears

With their twin rows of teeth

Holding on, little earrings,

Whispering reproaches, reproaches.

White as marble, as snow,

You are the first frost,

You are the killing frost

They fall across your body

Like lilies

Like lilacs

Like roses

They are planted in cursed ground

Every leaf they bear

Accuses, accuses

And no one will ever forget.

No wonder you cross your arms

Over your breast

No wonder you cover their nipples

Twin tiny snakes gone back

Into their white beds of earth.

You are white.

You are the inside of the apple,

Innocent, innocent.

Their teeth

Turn in their mouths;

Their tongue is an animal

Cowering.

You bring them the taste of the earth.

I

Death is only a commuter

Hanging on by the strap.

In the heat

His knuckles show white

His briefcase beneath him

Packed up with papers

Dog-eared and grey.

He has called on them all,

The housewife doing her cleaning,

Her hair tied in a cloth,

The lovers wrapped in their sweat

A thin tissue of silk.

They have slammed the door

On his foot,

See how misshapen, misshapen.

They have slammed the hospital

Hard in his face, the cartilaginous nose.

He is pitiable, pitiable.

Most everyone knows him.

He does not deal in asps.

He is a good worker, tireless.

un

First, you bought them

And they were numbered,

Six digits at least

One in a series of breaths

Spiked on a file

Your name on the label

Probably mispelled.

Did you have the right change?

Whose hands held them last?

In your hands,

Germs ate at the faces of coins.

Then you walked back.

The maniac on the block

Let you pass by

Without even a glance.

You turned the key in the lock.

You saw its halo of smudges.

You walked in.

The stale air caught its breath.

The pictures had nothing to say,

Having said it before.

Despondent, the cushions sagged deeper

As if borne down by bone.

You put the bottle in the center,

A tiny bouquet,

It blooms so fast now

Its flowers are black

Black and misshapen,

Mushrooms or fungi.

You take a glass from the shelf.

It is not really clean.

You fill it with water.

The water is old

It has been through your body

Before, it has been over rock

It has worn rock into sand

You will drink it once more

You are turning to sand.

The arched neck of the faucet

Turns away, old nurse, indifferent,

She has seen this before.

The sink skin is mottled with age,

Has grown a grate over its throat.

You swallow them one at a time.

Your mind begins its race

Around the room like a rat.

The glasses watch from their shelf,

The silver stares from its shelf

Silent anonymous accomplices

They watch, grey as clerks,

Serviceable,

The bottle is knocked over

You are knocked over

Your hair is oily

Your eyes are open

You are grey and hard as a stick.

Sometime later, they come

The jelly glasses give their report

Insignificant country

You have fallen.

The knives cut in here.

Things will remain much as they were,

For a generation at least.

They file out to the tune

Of "Rebuilding a Life".

Your small grey house is complete.

Impatient, the glasses

Stir on the shelves.

Impatient, the spoons

Stare at the doorway like eyes.

IV

In silver and gold

In ruby and jet

In purple and crimson

Cleopatra took her life

From a great golden tray.

She was attended, gorgeous in silk.

She was a tapestry,

Her death the last golden thread.

When she pressed an asp to each breast

The eyes of the world

Swivelled to the east,

Were blinded by purple and black.

Antony's silver sword

Was rubied with blood.

The sphinxes extended their claws.

All the cold grains

Fell through the gold glass

Like sand.

Each dune sighed like a sea.

The pyramids shifted their stones.

Heat stuck the chariots

To the great roads like glue.

Her face laughed

In the Romans' great shields.

Antony's hand gripped everyone's sword.

It was never to end.

They took up their reign

In the pillars of clouds.

Redder than sunsets, gold-tinged,

They follow the armies of earth

Victorious as gold.

v

On the screen,

Marilyn is soft as a cloud

Elizabeth is soft as a cloud

The dreamers are regimented in rows

Their dreams

Meeting in smoke overhead,

Kissing in clouds.

The floor is a hard granite field

Planted with popcorn

It never will reap.

A rat crosses a stockinged foot

Elizabeth's face

Marilyn's face

The girl feels the body's grey weight

She makes a mistake

She plays her trump card

She grasps the hand of her lover

Sitting beside,

She claps down on it,

Hard.