a selection from The Fault

THE RING

Ire

The woman was often surprised by thank-yous for things she’d

forgotten she’d done. Today she was given three different ones.

She put them in the closet on the shelf above the snorkels.

Sometimes she was surprised by ire directed at her for things

she’d forgotten she’d done. Both the ire and the thank you felt

completely arbitrary. The same act could have inspired one

person’s thanks and another person’s ire, since the acts were

not done with any intent one way or another. Each was

instinctive, and of similar quality, duration, content and form—

the act that produced the ire and the act that produced thank you.

The reactions made her realize how she must appear to others,

invisible, like the wind, sensed only in her movement through a

room, and then, only sensed by the shape of the objects she

touched, their behavior in response, their quality and character.

She obviously doesn’t actually exist at all apart from the

objects she daily caresses, it must have been an invisibility ring

that he had placed on her finger that night. Unless the objects

were immobile, or immutable, like God. Or especially if they

were immobile and immutable, like God. It is difficult to tell

what makes her real, and when and where, to whom, and for

how long.

Clumsiness

The day after the ring the wife became clumsy.

The ring must weigh a great deal to throw off her

balance like that. The first morning after the ring she

poured a string of boiling coffee across her fingers, and

three weeks later they are still bandaged. Two days

after the ring she broke a plate. Three days after the

ring, she lifted a crystal decanter to put it away and it

dropped on her head, where it made a large lump, and

fell to the sink where it broke a triangle piece of

porcelain clear off. It had been a crystal decanter that

the man had received as a gift from his first marriage,

and he had asked the woman if they could keep it. The

woman wondered how many objects in the man’s house

had joined the pact to kill her. After that she rested for a

day from getting hurt. On day four she cut her finger on

a new knife, and on day five she broke a wine glass.

There are so many objects in this large house, she felt

she would never be done.

Bed

Ever to go to bed angry 

is a very bad thing, the wife 

knows. Maybe that’s why since 

the ring she cannot bear 

to sleep in the bed. It might 

be the bed, is she a princess? But 

it also might be that his child

-ren never go to bed. It might

have nothing to do with the bed 

but with the pecking order.

Every time she orders a peck, 

it tickles itself away 

from the original sense. 

It ends up biting her hand. Once

she asked him to go without her 

to the sea and to take the children 

so she could work; he did. 

That night she tried to sleep in 

the bed. She did come to the bed 

in the middle of the night, and he did 

throw his arms around her waist, 

and in the morning

from work he texted her a kiss. 

But somewhere in between the sheets 

of the road that takes him to and from work, 

and the screens of the laptop, the phone, 

the television that follow his daughter 

all day and all night before which 

the wife must pass back and forth, 

the kiss got lost. She imagines

it stopped to look at the screen, 

too, and never pulled itself

away, or it falls into sleep 

when the screen goes dark, 

and it grows dark 

far away from the bed.

The Ring

Whenever the woman 

catches sight 

of the ring

on the hand 

across her abdomen

in the elevator’s

particularly unflattering 

mirror the woman 

suddenly understands

the mystery she’s 

teasing:

that the ring 

is what has 

been doing all 

the work these

days—gravity,

hydroponics, bed

making, bills.

She’s hardly

had to think

at all, all she has

to do right

now is hold 

her breathing

in its place and keep

her finger 

in the circle

created by the ring.

---

NO MORE FUN/HOUSE

Diana’s left our service/and the sink

is full of fresh clouds after the rain / we hung

onto the breakfast melons and their melancholy/ 

strolled to the shores of the teacup/ sat 

and watched the waves repeated / rush 

to the harbor slam themselves and shatter 

rise and fall, like a glass held by an unsteady 

god/ at the end of love/ it isn’t love undoing my life 

undoing the more we are/apart 

the less I will / back

— 

one can’t unspill

no one can/the source

so self-ful it cannot lie/cannot

even/speak/can stand/

it/when it can’t it spills

nevertheless the events 

here/such/as they/are are

narrated back/

wards because hind/sight/is 

topical/ one means, I do/it

depends on the site

it’s difficult/to hitch

the narrative/sequence

some parts wonder/out

of turn/undermining what

I’ve been/trying to compose

myself for a long

/run or the long

or time

— 

I have come to this

place a quiet/accident 

this little borrow /cool dark 

bed in /the corner I have 

spent fifteen minute-hands

hand-watering the petunias 

pinching / off the dead 

blooms. I planted them/more soil

weeding / out the hours. They turn 

their faces / to me. I am 

a tiny deity / to them

I am the rain—not the sun 

or the air, not earth/ just 

the rain. I thank them they 

thank me. None 

of them trembles/ before me, 

mistaking me for storm.

— 

here when I do what is done / there is no fun/

house mirror erroring my move-

ments then telling me it never 

happened. /Here no doors 

slam by wind or intent. 

a flower / is 

a flower not

a symbol / a currency 

to buy a bit of sex /a coin is just

a coin. My

—

girl is delighted with how I cut 

her hair/with the soup/with every

pencil, cup, thing. She can’t wait to go 

to school. She bounces back 

into the fun/ house after the cut

and sits for geometry/ with you //but you couldn’t 

help her. You forgot or didn’t know

how to say precisely/ it

how to measure/ how contain /as one /must do. 

— 

Before you air and water 

after you desert / you turned 

and entered /and lived all day 

at evening stood before / your 

dish of sky /small hatchling 

pool you’d only now found

repulsing / and attracting 

on your magnetic evening 

skulk / over the water skin 

the sunset leaving the few 

clouds / the usual shocking

yellow then / the lavender and

gray / Below the surface 

/fingerling bass wrestling 

locust pods sunk / months 

before / You 

— 

were quiet together / there 

in that ring of sky where sense 

merged sensual / the mouth 

of a bass broke 

the surface and you 

could see /not the light 

but its reflection as the sun 

removed itself from view

what you both saw 

had been missing 

already for several minutes 

though to you it was fresh 

as now

— 

and the next day Diana

who cleans once

a week threw down 

her bucket of water

you looked at each other

through the reflection

as you told her she’d not

be needed next 

month. Then she

looked up the sea

the sudsy pool 

of floor and

wet of your constant

face. Go, she said.

I will be all right

but you won’t be/ here

if you stay.