Circle Game Read Free Page B

single
bodies again
    They are singing, but
not to each other:
their feet move
almost in time to the singing
    We can see
the concentration on
their faces, their eyes
fixed on the empty
moving spaces just in
front of them.
    We might mistake this
tranced moving for joy
but there is no joy in it
    We can see (arm in arm)
as we watch them go
round and round
intent, almost
studious (the grass
underfoot ignored, the trees
circling the lawn
ignored, the lake ignored)
that the whole point
    for them
of going round and round
is (faster
    Â Â slower)
going round and round
    ii
    Being with you
here, in this room
    is like groping through a mirror
whose glass has melted
to the consistency
of gelatin
    You refuse to be
(and I)
an exact reflection, yet
will not walk from the glass,
be separate.
    Anyway, it is right
that they have put
so many mirrors here
(chipped, hung crooked)
in this room with its high transom
and empty wardrobe; even
the back of the door
has one.
    There are people in the next room
arguing, opening and closing drawers
(the walls are thin)
    You look past me, listening
to them, perhaps, or
watching
your own reflection somewhere
behind my head,
over my shoulder
    You shift, and the bed
sags under us, losing its focus
    There is someone in the next room
    There is always
    (your face
remote, listening)
    someone in the next room.
    iii
    However,
in all their games
there seems
to be some reason
    however
abstract they
at first appear
    When we read them legends
in the evening
of monstrous battles, and secret
betrayals in the forest
and brutal deaths,
    they scarcely listened;
one yawned and fidgeted; another
chewed the wooden handle
of a hammer;
the youngest one examined
a slight cut on his toe,
    and we wondered how
they could remain
completely without fear
or even interest
as the final sword slid through
the dying hero.
    The next night
walking along the beach
    we found the trenches
they had been making:
fortified with pointed sticks
driven into the sides
of their sand moats
    and a lake-enclosed island
with no bridges:
    a last attempt
(however
eroded by the water
in an hour)
to make
maybe, a refuge human
and secure from the reach
    of whatever walks along
(sword hearted)
these night beaches.
    iv
    Returning to the room:
I notice how
all your word-
plays, calculated ploys
of the body, the witticisms
of touch, are now
attempts to keep me
at a certain distance
and (at length) avoid
admitting I am here
    I watch you
watching my face
indifferently
yet with the same taut curiosity
with which you might regard
a suddenly discovered part
of your own body:
a wart perhaps,
    and I remember that
you said
in childhood you were
a tracer of maps
(not making but) moving
a pen or a forefinger
over the courses of the rivers,
the different colours
that mark the rise of mountains;
a memorizer
of names (to hold
these places
in their proper places)
    So now you trace me
like a country’s boundary
or a strange new wrinkle in
your own wellknown skin
    and I am fixed, stuck
down on the outspread map
of this room, of your mind’s continent
    (here and yet not here, like
the wardrobe and the mirrors
the voices through the wall
your body ignored on the bed),
    transfixed
by your eyes’
cold blue thumbtacks
    v
    The children like the block
of grey stone that was once a fort
but now is a museum:
    especially
they like the guns
and the armour brought from
other times and countries
    and when they go home
their drawings will be full
for some days, of swords
archaic sunburst maces
broken spears
and vivid red explosions.
    While they explore
the cannons
(they aren’t our children)
    we walk outside along
the earthworks, noting
how they are crumbling
under the unceasing
attacks of feet and flower roots;
    The weapons
that were once outside
sharpening themselves on war
are now indoors
there, in the fortress,
fragile
in glass cases;
    Why is it
(I’m thinking
of the careful moulding
round the stonework archways)
that is this time, such
elaborate defences keep
things