In the Works: 'Biopic at Golgotha'

 

L A T E R she would remember

the woman in the muskrat coat:

how she smiled on the snowy street

shining gold in the late-day sun,

a sleepy puppy in her arms.

And later she would remember

the hot-powder scent of the movie projector,

and the raspy whir

of machinery spinning images

she couldn’t remember seeing for herself

but were captured when

they got the dog for Christmas.

(See? There’s the tree,

in the parlor,

a Daddy-tall evergreen

dripping silvery strips

around obese raindrops

in pine-needle grottos

glowing blue or red or yellow.)

But that would be later.

In the beginning

she didn’t know where she was

or when she was

or what she was

or who she was

or that she was

or that there was anything

like a beginning.

Her life was one thing after the other.

Not in the meaning of a parade

of trials

and troubles

and travesties.

In the meaning of whatever

was in front of her,

or beside her

or in the room with her.

She was.

And she was there.

She would come to know the Christmas trees,

the movie camera,

the projector,

the reels of film

cached in flimsy cardboard boxes

under flimsy orange lids.

She would also come to know

the woman

the dog

and the snowy street

when the street wasn’t snowy

and the woman, the pup, and the street

weren’t consecrated by the sun

sobbing at the end of its day.