That Little Something Hardcover - 2008 - 1st Edition

THE ELEVATOR IS OUT OF ORDER

Grandmothers and their caged birds

Must be trembling with fear

As you climb with heavy steps,

Stopping at each floor to take a rest.

A monkey dressed in baby clothes,

Who belonged to an opera singer,

Once lived here and so did a doctor

Who peddled drugs to wealthy customers.

The one who let you feel her breasts

Vanished upstairs. The name is not familiar,

But the scratches of her nails are.

The bell rings, but no one comes to open the door.

That old man, with a face powdered white,

You caught peeking out of a door,

Whom did he expect to see if not you,

All frazzled and descending in a hurry?

NIGHT CLERK IN A ROACH HOTEL

I’m the furtive inspector of dimly lit corridors,

Dead light bulbs and red exit signs,

Doors that show traces

Of numerous attempts at violent entry,

Is that the sound of a maid making a bed at midnight?

The rustle of counterfeit bills

Being counted in the wedding suite?

A fine-tooth comb passing through a head of gray hair?

Eternity is a mirror and a spider web,

Someone wrote with lipstick in the elevator.

I better get the passkey and see for myself.

I better bring along a book of matches too.

SOUVENIRS OF HELL

Empty beer cans tied to an old model car.

A small circus tent in a parking lot.

Sparrows chirping in rows of trees

That have never known leaves.

The stores on Main Street were boarded up,

Except for a brightly lit tattoo parlor.

Persephone’s daughters on show

With orange hair and spiked collars.

You wish to know about the fires?

We saw mills the color of dried blood

Half-shadowed, half-lit by the setting sun,

Their many windows mostly broken.

The drunk who asked for spare change,

Wanted to tell us about his time in prison,

But with Satan’s palace still to see,

We left him right there with his mouth open.

DRAMATIC EVENINGS

You take turns being yourself,

Being someone else,

Addressing mirrors, airing your grievances

To a goldfish in a bowl.

Your Queen Gertrude and Ophelia

Are snoring away across town.

Your father’s ghost is in the bathroom

Reading Secret Life of Nuns,

While you pace back and forth

Clenching and unclenching your fists,

As if planning a murder,

Or more likely your own crucifixion.

Or you stand frozen still

As if an idea so obvious, so grand

Has come to you

And left you, for once, speechless.

Outside, you notice, it has started snowing.

You press your feverish forehead

Against the cold windowpane

And watch the flakes come down

Languidly, one at a time,

On the broken bird feeder and the old dog’s grave.

DEPARTMENT OF COMPLAINTS

Where you are destined to turn up

Some dark winter day

Walking up and down dead escalators

Searching for someone to ask

In this dusty old store

Soon to close its doors forever.

At long last, finding the place, the desk

Stacked high with sales slips,

Concealing the face of the one

You came to complain to

About the coat on your back,

Its frayed collar, the holes in its pockets.

Recalling the stately fitting room,

The obsequious salesman, the grim tailor

Who stuck pins in your shoulders

And made chalk marks on your sleeves

As you admired yourself in a mirror,

Your fists clenched fiercely at your side.

Copyright © 2008 by Charles Simic

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 and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.