The White Hotel Read Free Page B

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the maids, tired out, lighting up and drowsing,
or the strong burning-glass, the melting mountain.
I couldn’t sleep that night, I was so sore,
I think something inside me had been torn,
your son was tender to me, deep in me
all night, but without moving. Women keened
out on the terrace where the bodies lay,
I don’t know if you know the scarlet pain
of women, but I felt the shivers spread
hour after hour as the calm lake sent
dark ripples to the shores. By dawn, we had
not moved apart or slept. Asleep at last
I was the Magdalen , a figure-head,
plunging in deep seas. I was impaled
upon a swordfish and I drank the gale,
my wooden skin carved up by time, the wind
of icebergs where the northern lights begin.
The ice was soft at first, a whale who moaned
a lullaby to my corset, the thin bones,
I couldn’t tell the wind from the lament
of whales, the hump of white bergs without end.
Then gradually it was the ice itself
cut into me, for we were an ice-breaker,
a breast was sheared away, I felt forsaken,
I gave birth to a wooden embryo
its gaping lips were sucking at the snow
as it was whirled away into the storm,
now turning inside-out the blizzard tore
my womb clean out, I saw it spin into
the whiteness have you seen a flying womb.
You can’t imagine the relief it was
to wake and find the sun, already hot,
stroking the furniture with a serene
light, and your son watching me tenderly.
I was so happy both my breasts were there
I leapt out to the balcony. The air
was balmy with a scent of leaves and pines,
I leaned upon the rail, he came behind
and rammed up into me, he got so far
up into me, my still half-wintry heart
burst into sudden flower, I couldn’t tell
which hole it was, I felt the white hotel
and even the mountains start to shake, black forks
sprang into sight where all was white before.
    3
We made dear friends who died while we were there.
One was a woman, a corsetière,
who was as plump and jolly as her trade,
but the deep nights were ours alone. Stars rained
continuously and slowly like huge roses,
and once, a fragrant orange grove came floating
down past our window as we lay in awe,
our hearts were speechless as we saw them fall
extinguished with a hiss in the black lake,
a thousand lanterns hidden under drapes.
Don’t imagine there were never times
of listening gently to the night’s
tremendous silence, side by side, untouching,
or at least only his hand softly brushing
the mount he said reminded him of ferns
he hid and romped in as a boy. I learned
a lot about you from his whispers then,
you and his mother stood beside the bed.
Sunsets—the pink and drifting cloud-flowers, churning
off snowy peaks, the white hotel was turning,
my breasts were spinning into dusk, his tongue
churned every sunset in my barking cunt
and my throat drank his juice, it turned to milk,
or milk came into being for his lips,
for by the second night my breasts were bursting,
love in the afternoon had made us thirsty,
he drained a glass of wine and stretched across,
I opened up my dress, and my ache shot
a gush out even before his mouth had closed
upon my nipple, and I let the old
kind priest who dined with us take out the other,
the guests were gazing with a kind of wonder,
but smilingly, as if to say, you must,
for nothing in the white hotel but love
is offered at a price we can afford,
the chef stood beaming in the open door.
The milk was too much for two men, the chef
came through and held a glass under my breast,
draining it off he said that it was good,
we complimented him, the food was cooked
as tenderly as it had ever been,
more glasses came, the guests demanded cream,
and the hot thirsty band, the falling light
spread butter suddenly on the trees outside
the great french windows, butter on the lake,
the old kind priest kept sucking me, he craved
his mother who was dying in a slum,
my other breast fed other lips, your son’s,
I