James Merrill

 

The Book of Ephraim (excerpt)

Backdrop: The dining room at Stonington.Walls of ready-mixed matte “flame” (a wittyShade, now watermelon, now sunburn).Overhead, a turn of the century domeExpressing white tin wreathes and fleurs-de-lysIn palpable relief to candlelight.Wallace Stevens, with that dislocatedPerspective of the newly dead, would take itFor an alcove in the Baptist church next doorWhose moonlit tower saw eye to eye with us.The room breathed sheer white curtains out. In blewElm- and chimney-blotted shimmerings, soSlight the tongue of land, so high the point of view.1955 this would have been,Second summer of our tenancy.Another year we’d buy the old eyesoreHalf of whose top story we now rented;Build, above that, a glass room off a woodenStardeck; put a fireplace in; make friends.Now, strangers to the village, did we evenHave a telephone? Who needed one!We had each other for communicationAnd all the rest. The stage was set for Ephraim.Properties: A milk glass tabletop.A blue-and-white cup from the Five & Ten.Pencil, paper. Heavy cardboard sheetOver which the letters A to ZSpread in an arc, our covenantWith whom it would concern; alsoThe Arabic numerals, and YES and NO.What more could a familiar spirit want?Well, when he knew us better, he’d suggestWe prop a mirror in the facing chair.Erect and gleaming, silver-hearted guest,We saw each other in it. He saw us.(Any reflecting surface worked for him.Noons, D and I might row to a sandbarFar enough from town for swimming nakedThen pacing the glass treadmill hardly wetThat healed itself perpetually of us—Unobserved, unheard we thought, untilThe night he praised our bodies and our wit,Our blushes in a twinkling overcome.)Or we could please him by swirling a drop of rumInside the cup that, overturned and seemingSlightly to lurch at such times in mid-glide,Took heart from us, dictation from our guide.