M A R A  L E E  G R A Y S O N

poem

I'VE COME TO CALIFORNIA

to find my father’s ghost and have
a chat: what did you drink

at Wallace Stegner’s birthday party?
(A lot of applejack.)

what did they say about Steinbeck
at Stanford? (That he wasn’t

a great American author.)
how does someone fall asleep

with the Pacific Ocean stirring so?
(Close your eyes and think

of nothing.) Tell me the story
one more time.

In July a spider crawls across the morning
of his memory. Sun is shining

in all the wrong places; the spider’s legs
are bent. It’s always something, it says.

It knows itself too well.
One never can resist the gauze

of fly-wings spread and netty.
I can sympathize;

I’ve spent the past ten years hanging
from the shelf of my father’s voice:

will I ever see you peel an apple
with a pocket knife? how do I stand

in the shadow of a spotlight?
why did you come back?

Professor, where is there to go from here
where east is east and west

is like a lampshade,                         dressing up the sun?