Hope J. Smith

The Chronicle of Ms. S

Ms. S, the world’s brave and apocalyptic double, waits for the bus. She reads the posted bus route changes. She shuffles her gaze from car to car. Ms. S, en route to Lincoln Park Zoo to meet the usual man, makes a wish on the morning star.

A star is not only a star.

The man embraces Ms. S in the cawing bird house. In fact, he embraces her two or three times.

Oh I’m a rainbow with you.

Aren’t I a rainbow with you.

Ms. S can’t get enough. Her heart’s very foundation shudders! And the seals clap, the pigeons dance, and the lions, they roar!

Ms. S recalls the man talking with his back to Lake Michigan: When you leave, I focus on the footsteps as if I were counting breaths. Ms. S, her heart pulsing like a jackrabbit’s, stands on the curb while taxis whiz by. A kiss may not be the truth, but it’s what we wish.

Young boys on the corner

sharpen their hearts

and women mingle

like reeds in the park.

If they talk, they talk of casualties: Few bears have ever reached their maximum lifespan of thirty years. In Australia, as on most islands where it has been introduced, the mongoose has become an everyday panic. As many as five cheetahs will desert their prey if challenged by a hyena or lion.

Ms. S thinks of Paris, where cemeteries are built on hills and graves are layered one upon another.

Gauze curtains slink in and out

caressing the sill, catching

the knobs. Ms. S hears mopeds sputter

along rue d’Assass,

and sets of lovers

pause at every doorway.

The bald moon drags their silhouettes

across the street, through the gate

into the Luxembourg Gardens.

She turns her cheek

as if she too is being kissed.

The deepest part of Wednesday.

Too hot to sleep.

A train rounds the bend above her clacking shadows on her shoes. Ms. S makes a list of things to say and throws it away.

Dear Ms. S:

Everything is falling apart. The mixer’s motor caught fire, the book shelves are swaying, moths are falling from the lampshade, and the icebox sounds like a passing freight train. I’ve never been so close to disaster.

I haven’t been to church in months and miss the underlit dome and gold curves of cherub and saint. Could incense transform me? Would visiting the stations of the cross give me visions?

Somehow I think I can transform this desire for hymns and light in spite of my inheritance. I’ve changed everything and am trying to anchor the old ways to the bottom of the pond though I’m still not sure how to get them over the side of the boat. Perhaps standing as the bodhisattva did in a sateen gown, with oil and willow sprig I too could hover just below divine. But how will anyone know where to find me?

A logician told me, a square represents what’s necessary and a diamond what’s possible.

I did as my sister suggested and meditated on the shape of my liver. I don’t think it’s where my soul hides. I kept picturing a small blue bowl of steaming rice. It must be somewhere inside me. Tomorrow I will try my colon.

Hank Williams and George Morgan sound so beautiful I forget I’m urban. How did they know I missed you?

Ms. S makes a note to herself:

By most accounts about two-thirds of adult male chimps die in attacks by other male chimps. To swim faster, the fins of tunas fit into impressions in their bodies. An elephant stands on its trunk to show concern as we might wring our hands.

When it’s raining, happiness is an umbrella.

Ms. S lets her sandals slap against the bridge and echo. A boat buzzes past ducks wading in the murky water. She remembers the museum and lithographs of men and women in the river, flames above their heads.

twist twisting sting

Ms. S is not as old as Gertrude Stein was when she posed for Pablo Picasso. When Picasso couldn’t see her face anymore, he painted it out.

Ms. S stands near gargoyles. Foamy caps disappear into the lake. I barely understand what’s become of you, writes the man from across the ocean. She straightens picture frames in the stairway, makes a cup of sweet tea, looks out the window. She writes to the man:

Last night I dreamt

you introduced me to Frank O’Hara

because you thought we’d get along.

You were so right!

But I couldn’t hear a word he said

I only saw his lips move delicately, one

against the other.

Ms. S, blustery and particular, winds her way through the streets: Fullerton to Clark, Clark to Broadway, Broadway to Belmont. She takes pictures of firehouses and charred buildings, turns them into postcards, sends them to herself.

absence makes the heart

Ms. S, en route to meet the usual man, cuts through the conservatory. She notes what’s blooming, throws a penny into the well, exits through the back.

Bus drivers blow off steam

before and after their shifts.

At the bus barn, buses

are repaired and washed

and wait to fulfill their duty.

The wind picks up and pushes clouds through the sky. Mourning doves coo, birds can be so very precise. Ms. S pulls up the flaps of her coat and turns into Grant Park.

Sitting on a bench, she reaches into her bag.

Dear Ms. S:

All morning I tried to unbutton the sun from my roof. Sometimes you must attempt the impossible.

I made a list of everything that reminds me of you and have started to collect them. Fire, bird’s wing in motion, light at the edge of the horizon. I have so many things now I don’t know where to put them.

I remember you told me, We know water by its reflection. But how do we know land?

My light, my star, my astronomy, I’m a silver-plated charm.

You’re a gold locket.

Ms. S listens to the man in the Salt and Pepper Lounge: Material theory supposes heat to be a subtle fluid stored up in the interatomic spaces of bodies. Most of the universe is hidden in dark matter. When you become a star, will you miss the earth? How do/will we account for the loss?

a room within a room within a room

Ms. S can barely stand it! Her heart is a peony opening into the light! Her heart is a butterfly erupting from its cocoon!

Oh my goodness

let it all hang out

Under the el tracks, the man whispers in her ear, I’m so used to subways I only hear the crickets.