Massah and Meribah
She said, I think it’s time we passed the test. The cars were
Backed up along I-95 from the Cross-Bronx to
The Hudson River Parkway. It was noon when we hit
Manhattan. I told James I didn’t know the city
And he smiled; he’d spent a summer here. He wanted to find
A job in a gallery. We headed down the parkway
Toward the island south of Houston. The Hudson glinted dully, black
And unmoving on my right. To my left, beyond
James, grey stone flowed like sludge outside the window, only
Every second arteries of light would pierce the pulsing
Sooty wall which penned the city, grimly thrust toward the water.
I had James drop me off in Washington Square and took the
Subway north back toward Columbia. I had a friend
Enrolled there said St. Luke’s would give the test for free. No
Questions. The subway smelled like urine; I scuffed my foot against
The floor and felt the train slip liquid in its tunneled
Course beneath the concrete dermis of the street. When we
Emerged onto the el I can’t remember. I
Thought the slip of metal under skin was never quite so
Painless, and I felt afraid not only for the loss
Of the surf that hammered gently beneath my ears, but
The loss of something like my innocence. Pneumatic
Doors spat me onto the street. I remembered the
Name Morningside Drive from my father; he’d gone to
Yeshiva somewhere around Columbia, on
125th Street or something. He said he’d been
On the dome of the tower and had seen the city
Pulsing below. I found St. Luke’s as a shadow on my
Face; it swallowed me within its cool stone silences.
Directions and misdirections: each fading form in
Fluorescent rooms a momentary glimpse of the loss of
Life, mixed in with life’s blood, pulsing in some veins. She said,
We’ve done too much together to keep guessing. I think
It’s time we took the test. So she returned home to her
Women’s clinic which gives the test for free, and I went to
St. Luke’s. The corridors swam with motes of light as I
Found the hall, a narrow waiting-room with rows of seats along
The wall hung with drawn, expectant faces. We would not
Find out that day – that much we knew for sure, each heartbeat
Muffled so as not to offend the walking dead. I sat until
The patient flow decreased to a trickle. A woman
With starched skin nodded as her uniform crackled, and led
Me into a bare room with a counter, faucet and
Centrifuge. We sat beside each other at the
Counter, and I clenched my fist as she slapped my vein and drove
The needle home. I thought I felt my skin’s elastic pop as
The needle tunneled, thirsty, into my arm. The nurse said, Pump your
Fist, and crimson raced into the plastic vial of the syringe.
She changed vials three times, each time frenetic to stave each precious
Drop with the rubber tubing with which she’d bound my arm’s
Tides: the blood rushed and receded with each new vial. I turned my head
And gazed at deep red froth reflected in the chrome of the faucet and
Thought about the miracle of water. She’d tapped my arm with just
A toothpick’s length of steel and brought forth a flowing, purpling
Stream. That I was even there was proof enough I’d still dispute
A God who’d bring forth water from a stone, and now would have it
Poisoned as it was consumed: I’d eat of knowledge even unto
Death. I dreamed a woman’s flesh, hidden, mucous-covered and thirsty,
And stirred to find my own inner body bridged with metal to the
Vacuum of the world. The gurgling stopped, my pulse obscured by
The buzzing of the lamps within my ears.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Then the empty
Hall, the wall devoid of faces, and corridor of
Lights alive with buzzing fluorescence. The wind whipped across
The faces of the world as I exited into
New York. I half-expected water to spring up upon
The desert of concrete as each footfall struck the pavement, as
Each siren’s screamed dispute had challenged someone to respond. I might have
Died at any point in my life and it would have been enough,
But I lived to count my pulse in colored vials in a
Room in St. Luke’s. It would be nice to think that spilling blood were
Test enough, that now there’d be no need for proof, or other signs,
Or love, a thought gurgled in corridors within my brain. But
Spilling blood merely became a tidewater for other tests.
On the subway to Soho I dissolved into the
Mass of people merging south. James had looked at art
So long, he failed to notice the bandage on my arm.
We got into his car and slipped into the north-bound stream
Toward home. She’d gotten her results at home, but wouldn’t
Tell me until I’d gotten mine. That night as I lay
Staring at the inspiration of each sleeping breath,
I placed my hand gently on her beating heart. Her pulse
Seemed then as different from the life that pulsed within
My veins as the thick liquid that sat within those vials. That night my
Life called for measures other than the pounding of my tidal heart
Yet I could barely feel the loss of which my blood was the merest part.
Joseph Shieber
New Haven, December 1990
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