One Night in Balthazar

By Fanny Howe b. 1940 Fanny Howe

The hotel bar downstairs

was dirty and dark and almost empty

except for him whom I didn’t know

I lost my balance

because evil is aroused by absence

Outside on the island

a brick city had grown up and old

A person could only nibble on its shadows

Where was my beloved?

The cornerstone was familiar

but unrecognizable

and I didn’t understand why infinity

was seeping into my hair

Somebody said:

“He’s out of his bottle”

I guess it meant

Temporarily out of service and empty.

But then there was Arsene

beside the last remaining cabin

wandering with his eyes on the camera

Dynamite in his pocket

and a piece of thread

to trap a rabbit.

Evil is a growing thing

It has its own gravity

and never answers to its name

It is a hole into chaos. It is real

Arsene held me in his arms

He was drunk as usual

and his nipple smelled of rum

But still I loved him—

loved him madly!—

as if he was the one

Fanny Howe, "One Night in Balthazar" from Golden Handcuffs Review, vol. 1, #2. Copyright © 2003 by Fanny Howe. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Golden Handcuffs Review Vol. 1 #2 (2003)

Biography

Fanny Howe is the author of more than 20 books of poetry and prose. “If someone is alone reading my poems, I hope it would be like reading someone’s notebook. A record. Of a place, beauty, difficulty. A familiar daily struggle,” Fanny Howe explained in a 2004 interview with the Kenyon Review. Indeed, more than a subject or theme, the process of recording experience is central to Howe’s poetry. Her work explores grammatical . . .

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