CONFLUENCE, COINCIDENCE

Some years back (too many to say, really), I wrote this poem that upon completion appeared to be subconsciously inspired by Tennessee Williams. Not that my words on paper resembled those of the master, but it was the vibe I felt while reading it back to myself.

Last night, I read an article about the influential director Douglas Sirk, who late in life made a short film of a one-act play by Williams called Talk to Me Like the Rain And Let Me Listen... which, while unfamiliar, immediately reminded me of my old poem. Why? Here's an excerpt from the opening stage direction:

On a folding bed lies a Man in crumpled underwear, struggling out of sleep with the sighs of a man who went to bed very drunk. A woman sits in a straight chair at the room's single window, outlined dimly against a sky heavy with a rain that has not yet begun to fall. The woman is holding a glass from which she takes small, jerky sips like a bird drinking.

The setting in the play is in a Manhattan apartment, while my poem (as I imagined it) takes place somewhere in the Deep South. And here, the man and woman are (presumably) married, as opposed to the father and daughter in my poem (though the use of the word "father" might not need to be taken literally in terms of their relationship). But the similarities--the diminished woman sitting near a window holding a glass, the rain, the wreck of a man waking up on the couch--were surprising.

Not the biggest coincidence I've ever encountered, but a nice excuse to visit an old friend. Here's the poem, with a few minor corrections/changes by a more critical hand:


TENNESSEE

The rails of the porch were raintipped;
she stood wirelipped
and grimaced at the grey on the horizon

a glass of lemonade sweats on the windowsill,
lipsticky on the rim:
a one-night-sip memento

she longed for the embrace of a velvet mist
but the sandpaper cyclone cut in

inside,
the fabric flutters
from the sideswipe of the breeze,
brushes Father's arm,
sleepnumb on the sofa

the woman in his dream glides closer
(with laugh of heliumed hyena);
he reaches out to pet her
and awakens caressing the drapes

outside,
she peers through the screen:
Father is startled and surly;
he barks for his pipe,
"and how 'bout a light?"
...she withdraws with the grace of the tide.



Boston, MA