The Book of Ephraim (B)

Backdrop: The dining room at Stonington. Walls of ready-mixed matte "flame" (a witty Shade, now watermelon, now sunburn). Overhead, a turn of the century dome Expressing white tin wreathes and fleurs-de-lys In palpable relief to candlelight, Wallace Stevens, with that dislocated Perspective of the newly dead, would take it For an alcove in the Baptist church next door Whose moonlit tower say eye to eye with us. The room breathed sheer white curtains out. In blew Elm-and chimney-blotted shimmerings, so Slight the tongue of land, so high the point of view. 1955 this would have been, Second summer of our tenancy. Another year we'd buy the old eyesore Half of whose top story we now rented; Build, above that, a glass room off a wooden Stardeck; put a fireplace in; make friends. Now, strangers to the village, did we even Have a telephone? Who needed one! We had each other for communication And all the rest. The stage was set for Ephraim. Properties: A milk glass tabletop. A blue-and-white cup from the Five & Ten. Pencil, paper. Heavy cardboard sheet Over which the letters A to Z Spread in an arc, our covenant With whom it would concern; also The Arabic numerals, and YES and NO. What more could a familiar spirit want? Well, when he knew us better, he'd suggest We prop a mirror in the facing chair. Erect and gleaming, silver-hearted guest, We saw each other in it. He saw us. (Any reflecting surface worked for him. Noons, D and I might row to a sandbar Far enough from town for swimming naked Then pacing the glass treadmill hardly wet That healed itself perpetually of us-- Unobserved, unheard we thought, until The night he praised our bodies and our wit, Our blushes in a twinkling overcome.) Or we could please him by swirling a drop of rum Inside the cup that, overturned and seeming Slight to lurch at such times in mid-glide, Took heart from us, dictation from our guide. But he had not yet found us. Who was there? The cup twitched in its sleep. "Is someone there?" We whispered, fingers light on Willowware, When the thing moved. Our breathing stopped. The cup, Glazed zombie of itself, was on the prowl Moving, but dully, incoherently, Possessed, as we should soon enough be told, By one or another of the myriads Who hardly understand, through the compulsive Reliving of their deaths, that they have died --By fire in this case, when a warehouse burned. HELLP O SAV ME scrawled the cup As on the very wall flame rippled up, Hypnotic wave on wave, a lullaby Of awfulness. I slumped. D: One more try. Was anybody there? As when a pike Strikes, and the line singing writes in lakeflesh Highstrung runes, and reel spins and mind reels YES a new and urgent power YES Seized the cup. It swerved, clung, hesitated, Darted off, a devil's darning needle Gyroscope our fingers rode bareback (But stopping dead the instant one lost touch) Here, there, swift handle pointing, letter upon Letter taken down blind by my free hand-- At best so clumsily, those early sessions Break off into guesswork, paraphrase. Too much went whizizing past. We were too nice To pause, divide the alphabetical Gibberish into words and sentences. Yet even the most fragmentary message-- Twice as entertaining, twice as wise As either of its mediums--enthralled them.