Poem of the Day for April 22nd

The Basque Nose

Patrick Rosal (Listen to the poet read this

poem here.)

I may as well be invisible

when Curtis says to Idoia his wife

That Basque nose

Let me touch that nose

and she lets him

and I’m surprised I don’t

repeat him: Let me touch that nose

even though I’ve thought more often

of her chin— what I would abandon

to touch the line along

the muscle of her neck

to the small ridge below her ear —

a place which has no simple word

even in the half dozen languages

we choose not to speak in that room

Curtis—one of the most benign

men I know except for one

New Year’s when he got drunk and vaulted

his six-foot-four Iowa-farmboy frame

over the dinner table to stomp

the gum out of some brute

pushing up on Idoia

But do you blame him?

The brute I mean

for blabbing anything

the liquor—he mistook

for muse—inspired him to say

just to hear Idoia speak—her vowels

thin cool and round as céntimos

dropped in a beggar’s hand

I smoke on their front patio

Idoia stops in the kitchen

And I hold my cigarette

to the window between us—

how (for a moment) she purses

her mouth near the glass

a mock gesture too much

like a kiss for me to ignore

After dinner Curtis Idoia and I drink

wine which gives me courage

to practice my Spanish I think about

the difference between saber and conocer

conjugating each verb beginning

in first person New Jersey familiar

So when Curtis gets drunk

and kisses his wife’s shoulders

they both close their eyes and I’m still

muttering I know... You know... He knows...

The Basque Nose is reprinted from Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (Persea Books, 2003).

Also published at Fishouse.org.

(Submitted by Tamara L. Mindensall)