Deep Deuce

By Robert Polito b. 1951 Robert Polito

As phantoms direct life from the shadows,

I feel

I leaned on something,

and it broke.

My father on the porch with his crosswords said,

this must be what it feels like to be dead;

When I returned from the dead there was no one to greet me,

but still you are glad—

I wander the ruins the way my tongue

wanders my missing teeth,

the bricks and mortar of Deep Deuce

rotted like molars in an ancient mouth;

Here Charlie Christian might have walked—

The astrologer counseled patience

and creative imaging:

Step One: Visualize

an object that symbolizes the accursed influence. Picture yourself throwing

it into a furnace.

Step two: Visualize

the person who is responsible for the curse. Imagine one end of a rope

is tied around your waist and the other around that person. Picture yourself cutting

the rope with a chainsaw as you call out, “You have no power over me!”

Step three: Repeat

twice a day for eleven days . . .

You visualize her green boots inside the furnace . . .

—No. You are in a crematorium and you see

her perfect and corruptible body on a tray sliding into fire;

Then you see yourself cutting the rope that ties you together with a saw;

And then at last your own imperfect and corruptible body—I mean, me—calls out

and I jump in after her.

Source: Hollywood & God (University of Chicago Press, 2009)

Biography

Poet and scholar Robert Polito was born in 1951 in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his PhD from Harvard and has served since 1992 as director of Creative Writing at The New School. On January 23, it was announced that Robert Polito will become the second president of the Poetry Foundation on July 8, 2013. Polito’s collections of poetry include Hollywood & God (2009) and Doubles (1995). His poetry blends narrative and lyric . . .

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