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The next poem I'm going
to read is The Tarnished,

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and it's for Roger Bowen,
who gave me the idea.

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I was writing this
series of angel poems

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and realized I had to take
angel off all these poems.

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But anyway, I left one that
at least had Gypsy Angel,

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and I kept one
called The Tarnished.

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And I had this marvelous
idea, because I

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had to think of
something, to take it

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from John Fowles' The
French Lieutenant's Woman,

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largely because the woman
there is so fascinating,

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and to use one of
Steve Orlen's lines,

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and if I don't say it correctly,
I hope he forgives me.

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Something about we're in love
with the need for fictions

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or whatever.

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If I didn't say it right, you
need to buy the book anyway.

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So I don't have
to worry about it.

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But there's that
sense that we all

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seem to fall in love with a need
for fictions, or in some cases

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we are in love with our
own fictions anyway.

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Anyway, it's spoken from her,
as if I kind of took her out

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of the book and had her speak
by herself, as if she isn't

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doing it in the book already.

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There's an epigraph.

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I knew of no other way to
break out of what I was.

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Each day when I walk
down to the wharf,

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some think I wait for
my lover to return,

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but I just stare into the days,
a legend, no longer human.

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Others believe I will
burst into flames from sin

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or jump off a cliff
to lie insignificant

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on the sea's quiet floor.

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Men call me whore.

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Ladies whisper behind
my back, pretending lust

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belongs only to men.

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At night, I know they
dream about sailors,

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green islands, the bright
hooks in fishermen's smiles.

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I share my penance with
no one, not even God.

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My reward.

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Some nights I comfort
the maid while she

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cries herself to sleep,
kiss the poor wings

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folded down her back.

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She knows that man is like
the sea, a boy who leaves

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a white coat at your feet.

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