Lost Sequences of Personalities

In a workshop

of story fragments

Pahn sits    on the south side    of the room

in an arc of desks    listening

to Ahshehra talk and call

upon them to recite 

 and Pahn remembers     having written

something     He flips

through his papers     finding

essay pages

and long-lines of prosy

phrases       but 

Lehsohveekha    is it her?      Speaks

 first

her words are lost now

and toward the end    of her page   he hears

Dimphna’s voice

reading in unison

and recalls now        that they

have    collaborated in his fondness for them  

The class ends

and he watches them drive

toward the roundabout     in the coastal plain

  then takes    the roundabout himself…

…soon he is riding

 through the rhythm-and-blues

neighborhood    toward the bohemian

district       with an old bluesman

        on the radio   He is following

a man    on a bicycle    wearing

a faded orange-brown

blazer    who turns and smiles

back at the sound

of the song    and begins

to sway with the

 music           

And Pahn

       with the memory

of the class

with Dimphna and Lehsohveekha    behind him

now knows   

he can dance with music

he always knew he had rhythm

but was unable to express it

jumping

and popping

        his bicycle

down the block             and

        around

         the                        

          corner…

…he has arrived at the front of a store

that has the smell of recycled age—

the sharp edges and white walls

of fifties modern    plastered onto the frame

of indefinite past    eras     and layered

with post-modern decoration       It is

a palimpsest of influences—

Empire/

Eichler/

East Indian/

New England Collegiate/

Kinsey/

Adrienne Rich/

Silvia Plath/

Beatnik/

Hippie   Pahn

leaves his bike and meets a young woman     who? 

in front of the store  and picks up   there

a bounteous tangled soft   

               hank of dull orange yarn

                                 that he holds in his arms

                          like a child

dragging the loose loops

through the damp dirt 

                                         laughing

                                  with the woman

                     and making jokes

of realizing      it was left there

because the end had been vomited on       Swiftly

and confidently          he swings his hand

through the strands

like a sharp knife

through soba noodles

                                                    freeing

the clean and happy

                                               from the bedraggled

 

                                                And Pahn

is so happy in the woman’s company

                                                           that he says

they should marry…

…he is inside the store             Rakhehla

is with him now      suggesting another woman whom 

Pahn met years ago

but as

he peruses the rooms—

a vague venue

of books and paintings

                                  objet d’art 

                  and gauzy second-hand clothes—

he flirts

                                                      with the Rakhehla-woman

saying beautiful things

                                to her    as she shifts

in and out of various loves    of Pahn

                                                                   slowly

gravitating into Dimphna

 and after a while

he is so happy with her             that he suggests

that they should marry also

                                                but

reminds himself        and her

that he has just suggested the same

to the other woman

                                    outside 

It is getting late

                     and she in her shy

                               contented amour     says

good-night to Pahn     and goes

to another room

where she lies down

       sleepily

and happily

recounting to Rakhehla the lines of poetry

                                 that he has spoken to her

of how beautiful and loving

                                             they were

                                                                       and she drifts

                                                into a topographic sleep

while 

Pahn slowly lifts

                                             above the building

 

seeing the first woman fade

 into a valley like Egairia

on a geologic map       a small

        and level

glade in metamorphic terrain

 

seeing the second woman fade

into a valley like Djuturna

thin

and gentle

                   of light felsic terrain

    sloping

              gently

to the East