Parallax. Maureen Mulhern

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      PARALLAX

      Maureen Mulhern

      Copyright © 1986 by Maureen Mulhern

      All rights reserved

      “Candelia” received the 1984 Ruth Lake Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Mulhern, Maureen, 1957–

      Parallax.

      (Wesleyan new poets)

      I. Title. II. Series.

      PS3563.U393P3 1986 811′.54 85-22750

      ISBN 0-8195-2130-2 (alk. paper)

      ISBN 0-8195-1131-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

      All inquiries and permissions requests should be addressed to the Publisher, Wesleyan University Press, 110 Mt. Vernon Street, Middletown, Connecticut 06457.

      Distributed by Harper & Row Publishers, Keystone Industrial Park, Scranton, Pennsylvania 18512.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      FIRST EDITION

      Wesleyan New Poets

      Cover design by Joyce Kachergis.

       For my parents …

      Contents

       Skating 3

       Candelia 5

       Daydreaming at the Beach 7

       Die Forelle 8

       Edging 10

       Matinal 11

       After Rain, What Entropy Appears 12

       Lost in Italy 13

       The Lake 15

       Palm-Reading 17

       Under a Tundra, the Desert, the Sea 18

       Along the Promenade 20

       11/84 21

       Medulla 22

       The Shell 24

       Candles in the Forest 25

       Parallax 26

       On the Highway 27

       Cloth Stars 29

       Winter 31

       Provisional 32

       At Sea 33

       The Firewalkers 34

       Lago Mar 35

       The Wait 37

       With Love 39

       From the Country 40

       Night by Cool Water 43

       The Quarry 44

       Burning Boat 45

       Apology 46

       Ménage 47

       Equinox 49

       Incubus Idolum 50

       Recovery 51

       All Summer Long 52

      PARALLAX

      Skating

      Over Sinoway’s pond the snag of skates

      Dragged rough lines across the crust.

      I imagined crayfish in hibernation,

      Their pewter spines curled in frozen viscous

      Sacs and bubbles while hockey pucks

      Sent shadows over them like tiny spheres

      Whizzing out of orbit. I spun crookedly,

      Snow catching on my eyelashes

      As I stumbled, pulled by a mottled glow

      Of fish below the ice, their opaque,

      Greenish skin as fine as rice paper, mouths

      Stuck in perpetual loops. I circled

      And etched cuneiform runes, scrambled

      Messages to wood-hued owls who took

      Refuge in Sinoway’s barn. (Their tight,

      oval chests beneath the feathers, cold.) Cider

      Fermented in enormous vats and apples

      All summer long waited listlessly like

      People in bus stations. But the winter

      Was an Appaloosa, bruised white and grey,

      Its mane, cream turning pale against the sky.

      At night, I dreamed of clear, red planets

      Eclipsing thinner disks, shifting

      Like ocular cells on all sides; featureless

      Faces bobbed for eye space while I clung

      To the basket of a hot-air balloon

      And felt the world obliquely tip away, sliding

      Further and further to where I am now.

      Candelia

      Once I’d walk from one end of the living-

      Room to another, the medication took hold

      And I’d turn into sand;

      Particle