Pacific Walkers. Nance Van Winckel
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THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST POETRY SERIES
Linda Bierds, General Editor
THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST POETRY SERIES
2001John HainesFor the Century’s End
2002Suzanne PaolaThe Lives of the Saints
2003David BiespielWild Civility
2004Christopher HowellLight’s Ladder
2005Katrina RobertsThe Quick
2006Bruce BeasleyThe Corpse Flower
2007Nance Van WinckelNo Starling
2008John WitteSecond Nature
2009David BiespielThe Book of Men and Women
2010Christopher HowellDreamless and Possible
2011Katrina RobertsUnderdog
2012Kathleen FlennikenPlume
2013Nance Van WinckelPacific Walkers
Pacific Walkers
Poems by NANCE VAN WINCKEL
Pacific Walkers, the thirteenth volume in the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series, is published with the generous support of Cynthia Lovelace Sears.
© 2013 by the University of Washington Press
First edition 2013
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Designed by Dustin Kilgore
16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
University of Washington Press
PO Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145, USA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Winckel, Nance.
Pacific walkers : poems / by Nance Van Winckel. — First edition 2013.
pages cm. — (The Pacific Northwest Poetry Series ; thirteenth) Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-295-99281-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
I. Title.
PS3572.A546P33 2013
811’.54—dc23
2012037684
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.∞
Epigraph on p. 1: Translation by James Wright, from his poem “Three Stanzas from Goethe,” in Collected Poems (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1972), 112.
Cover image: Face without World View by Dong Wensheng.
I / Pacific Walkers
That man standing there, who is he?
His path lost in the thicket,
Behind him the bushes
Lash back together,
The grass rises again,
The waste devours him.
— GOETHE, “Harzreise im Winter”
Signing on with The Daily Sun
Nearing a thousand words a minute, I can type
to your health. I can input a print that’s fit
to all. Can get across baby without
a single b. I can keep my prayer mat
under wraps. Ditto the armband. I have the facts,
you have the contracts. Sure, you can change
my name to Lance in the byline.
Like jerking off Band-Aids, I can rip away
calendar pages so fast, no one will even know
we’re over the past. Day in, day out, I can
make them play along with my playing
along, can make them believe decedent,
can disseminate and disguise at the same time
what’s face up, fetid, gnawed at by weasels.
Just. The. Facts. I am like you. Or passing
through you like a taco. Easily rolled up
to swat a pesky moth. Spread wide to accept
your bounty of trout guts. Quick to appear,
pass the verbiage, and disappear.
I can stay anon. I can live anon.
I can keep anon in my heart.
Last Address
What gold flitter has made of your ear
a hive? Clouds tug loose a last dream
and now the rainfall bears down
your secrets. The question’s not
if the river had its way with you,
spit you out as a small inquiry
unfit for the big answer. No,
the question won’t pertain to tattoos
or unmatchable DNA, but to what
world, under what sun, in what situ
we go on finding each you, each you,
the not-missed, the never missing.
***
We stand at the foot of you.
Bees and swallows rustle the grass
around half flesh, half bone, half
here, half gone. Dot of earth: nothing
owed or owned. Once you were a bud
in someone’s belly. A swim, a sleep,
then to crown your way out. Keep
mum. Keep it to yourself, Little Prince
of the Reigning Question,
the would-you-do-it-all-again
there there, now now.
Found on the bank of the Spokane River at approximately 2200 W. Falls Street. Adult Caucasian male. This male was 5 feet 11 inches in height and weighed approximately 161 pounds. His hair was dark brown or possibly black. Clothing worn: a pair of black lace-up boots with a brand name listed as “CORCORAN,” a pair of black socks, a pair of light blue denim pants with a brand