[Carl Copeland]

I feel myself undergoing a conversion to free verse. Do you know the poet who’s working this wonder? (Hint: Christopher Isherwood, having read some of his poems, told him, “I have an idea you would write good prose.”)

Evening

          Evening is her name.
She is waiting for you at the breathless height of the stairs,
and to admit you she draws the door soundlessly open
before you’ve had time to remove the doorkey from your pocket.
She is not Oriental and yet she’s acquired the graces of the Far East.
They go with the skin exposed by the whispering poppy kimono,
that artfully careless permission of a breast’s ivory satin
to be glimpsed as she draws the door further open with flickering eyes
and cool smile, suggestive of, “Yes, your touch I’ll know later.”
Why does she lift a finger to her lips, always as if the room,
          spacious and cool,
contained a music which is too delicate for a word to intrude upon it
or audible footsteps to fall?
There is an unspoken admonition, “Shoes off at the door, please.”
And other silent gestures.
                                    She indicates all about her
those many little enchantments which make the room safe to enter.
And terror is suspended at the threshold …

          Les points de suspension: Evening’s ways of saying
that what you’re about to say does not need saying.
All day you’ve been gone, and what has she done in your absence?
A number of leisurely things, accomplished with a quiet grace.
She has bathed in cool, scented water and dusted herself with rice powder,
          prepared herself for your return as a jewel
                     for a birthday
is enclosed in gift-wrapping.
          Marvelously the window seems enlarged
                     to three times its true size
and you feel that, leaning out of it,
                     she has inhaled
          the freshness of a great distance:
then turned from the window to release it into the room’s atmosphere
a moment before your return.
          She has made fragrant tea.
It is in pale blue bowls set on saucers, with crescents of lemon
cut so thinly they’ll float on the pale amber surface,
lighter than liquid, than anything but the beginning of dusk.

Oh, she has long known how you love to stretch out on the floor
with your head resting on her lap that’s softer than a silk cushion!
          And what else has she done in your absence?
All of the heavy furniture which offended you has been removed
          from the room, on the wide bed she has spread
fresh linen’s landscape of snow.

Another mysterious marvel: she has widened
the table beside the bed to accommodate Rilke’s stone angels
          and the daring aerial leap and outcry of Crane
over Brooklyn’s bridge and shipyards.

          It is Evening’s room prepared for your return.
Yet something now draws you toward the mysteriously enlarged window.
                     You look out.
You see five stories below the level which took your breath
          an apparitional youth.
He is standing directly below you and looking up at you
as you look down at him.
          Then all of Evening’s enchantments are dissolved
in that luminous upward look, innocent, but an enticement.
And he is Evening, then, instead of she who was Evening
          and descending the stairs takes your breath
                     more completely
than did ascending.
          Is He there when you rush from the entrance?
          Angelic, inquiring, inviting?
          Not even the mist that seemed to envelop his gleam.
And what a long breathless climb back up the five flights to —
          she is Evening again.
Again She receives you, a finger to her lips, meaning no word.
Rest your head on the pillow softer than silk, among these little enchantments, and drink
          the forgetfulness tea.
          I am Evening: He only pretended to be.