Onan, Low Tide by Robert Hill Long
What can a wave do but surge, like the last surge yanking it shoreward by a wind-colored rope? On midnight’s couch, without moving, I’m being rushed toward some scene of hysteria and collapse. Tell me what to retract, books. Tell me why, black bowl full of my father’s ash. On the north end of Shell Island I’d lie, naked, twenty-three, reading books thin with the bleached wisdom of men in their forties. I swigged from a black stoneware jug of May wine and said No to one man, then another.
Why, I wonder, now that my nakedness is no pleasure boat. The waves kept urging one thing, which sounded like Wait, wait. And why did no woman stop at my white chenille spread baited with books and wine, tomatoes and oranges? Tell me, sugar-pine cones. Tell me, river-rock hearth, why the past surges through me to no conclusion but a little quiet spit on my belly, chilled and immobile as wet sand. Why the books promised transcendent futures as far as where this wave swelled yesterday.
I could not put men’s books aside to let a man redecorate my mouth, to tilt heaven to a new angle. So I took the tan flag of self they wanted to wrap around whatever bookless loneliness brought them hunting down the beach, dove through the surf and floated beyond its crash and foamy drama. It was Sunday, I was no longer Christian, but lay on my back, arms spread, asking the sun as a father, When will I know what to say Yes to? Swells lifted my body, like fucking, but more philosophical.
I was more willing to be slashed by bluefish in my soft undermeat than risk a man amounting to passion. My place among waves was to follow, like father like son; to fall apart on the sand-white shoulder of a woman. It is the days of lost chances that surge, that return as a spasm; only the reasons for losing them recede, dissolve. The word Wait has another speed now. Feel it rising, cresting with the weight it accumulated throughout the long journey of saying No?
Beached on midnight’s couch—dishwasher surging in its dark half of the room—I lie, crushing an old promise in Kleenex. Bare, growing cold, I stare at a bookcase like an eight foot wave. The books that bear down on me have the names of men crushed shoulder to shoulder, none of them asking for anything now. All their power, as foretold, will fall on me at last. And the water, domestic, conditioned, trapped in its white box, cleans and spins, its counterfeit ocean answering Yes, yes, yes.
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About the Author
Robert Hill Long
Born: Raleigh, North Carolina
Now Resides: Eugene, Oregon
On-line: http://roberthilllong.wordpress.com, http://rhlnewtexts.wordpress.com
Bio: Robert Hill Long makes yearly pilgrimages to the family graveyard that is North Carolina to visit survivors, listen to the mockingbird, and wash his hands in the aromas of bay laurel and gardenia. But he belongs to Oregon and the Left Coast. His books include The Kilim Dreaming (narrative sonnet sequences, forthcoming from Bear Star Press), The Wire Garden (Arlo Press via lulu.com), The Effigies (flash fictions, Plinth Books), and The Work of the Bow (Cleveland State University Press). He works at the University of Oregon and is married to one woman, six guitars and a ukulele.
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image by Hengki24.
