The Ghost in the Martini
by Anthony Hecht
containingOver the rim of the glass
Containing a good martini with a twist
I eye her bosom and consider a pass,
containingCertain we’d not be missed
containingIn the general hubbub.
Her lips, which I forgot to say, are superb,
Never stop babbling once (Aye, there’s the rub)
containingBut who would want to curb
containingSuch delicious, artful flattery?
It seems she adores my work, the distinguished grey
Of my hair. I muse on the salt and battery
containingOf the sexual clinch, and say
containingSomething terse and gruff
About the marked disparity in our ages.
She looks like twenty-three, though eager enough.
containingAs for the famous wages
containingOf sin, she can’t have attained
Even to union scale, though you never can tell.
Her waist is slender and suggestively chained,
containingAnd things are going well.
containingThe martini does its job,
God bless it, seeping down to the dark old id.
(“Is there no cradle, Sir, you would not rob?”
containingSays ego, but the lid
containingIs off. The word is Strike
While the iron’s hot.) And now, ingenuous and gay,
She is asking me about what I was like
containingAt twenty. (Twenty, eh?)
containingYou wouldn’t have liked me then,
I answer, looking carefully into her eyes.
I was shy, withdrawn, awkward, one of those men
containingThat girls seemed to despise,
containingMoody and self-obsessed,
Unhappy, defiant, with guilty dreams galore,
Full of ill-natured pride, an unconfessed
containingSnob and a thorough bore.
containingHer smile is meant to convey
How changed or modest I am, I can’t tell which,
When I suddenly hear someone close to me say,
containing“You lousy son-of-a-bitch!”
containingA young man’s voice, by the sound,
Coming, it seems, from the twist in the martini.
“You arrogant, elderly letch, you broken-down
containingBrother of Apeneck Sweeney!
containingThought I was buried for good
Under six thick feet of mindless self-regard?
Dance on my grave, would you, you galliard stud,
containingSilenus in leotard?
containingWell, summon me you did,
And I come unwillingly, like Samuel’s ghost.
‘All things shall be revealed that have been hid.’
containingThere’s something for you to toast!
containingYou only got where you are
By standing upon my ectoplasmic shoulders,
And wherever that is may not be so high or far
containingIn the eyes of some beholders.
containingTake, for example, me.
I have sat alone in the dark, accomplishing little,
And worth no more to myself, in pride and fee,
containingThan a cup of luke-warm spittle.
containingBut honest about it, withal . . .”
(“Withal,” forsooth!) “Please not to interrupt.
And the lovelies went by, ‘the long and the short and the tall,’
containingHankered for, but untupped.
containingBloody monastic it was.
A neurotic mixture of self-denial and fear;
The verse halting, the cataleptic pause,
containingNo sensible pain, no tear,
containingBut an interior drip
As from an ulcer, where, in the humid deep
Center of myself, I would scratch and grip
containingThe wet walls of the keep,
containingOr lie on my back and smell
From the corners the sharp, ammoniac, urine stink.
‘No light, but rather darkness visible.’
containingAnd plenty of time to think.
containingIn that thick, fetid air
I talked to myself in giddy recitative:
‘I have been studying how I may compare
containingThis prison where I live
containingUnto the world . . .’ I learned
Little, and was awarded no degrees.
Yet all that sunken hideousness earned
containingYour negligence and ease.
containingNor was it wholly sick,
Having procured you a certain modest fame;
A devotion, rather, a grim device to stick
containingTo something I could not name.”
containingMeanwhile, she babbles on
About men, or whatever, and the juniper juice
Shuts up at last, having sung, I trust, like a swan.
containingStill given to self-abuse!
containingBetter get out of here;
If he opens his trap again it could get much worse.
I touch her elbow, and, leaning toward her ear,
containingTell her to find her purse.
|