Last night I woke up from a drowse with the perfect word. My notebook wasn't handy. I again thought I should paint a blackboard on the wall by my bed. I slurred to James: write me an e-mail. Okay -- what? Just say "ungloved."
One of the first poems I wrote for Ghost Maps was "She Comes to Meet Him" -- a good poem with one slightly off word in it: the "untouched" in "takes my untouched hand."
Here's the new version:
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She comes to meet him
Omaha, Nebraska -- April 1996
Most of a leg left on a hospital ship --
the rock, the reek of ether.
He learned to walk, after,
but now he's going back
to bone, listing
into old damage.
We meet in the parlour.
He sits and sets his cane to picket
beside him, takes
my ungloved hand.
The young researcher, he says --
a charity. It might be
the young lady, in a yellow dress,
a perfume called Forest Lily,
as if it were a different April
and I had come to see him
carried from the train.
Outside,
on Farnam Street, the tulips blown,
the rain.
I'm so excited!
No, really.
"Ungloved" and "peach" are the best two moments of my week.
A really much better word! What's your editor think?
I completely understand your excitement. "Ungloved" is wonderful, not only because of the way it sounds in the poem, but because of all the historical connotation - of course your hand is ungloved, since ladies don't wear gloves to go out anymore, as they did in the forties, the time that you and he will be discussing. And ungloved, unprotected, unwary, open to sensation and experience... Mmmm, reverberations...
Congrats! The moments of genius can sometimes feel buried beneath all the damn hard work, but it only makes 'em sweeter.
You're right, "untouched" wasn't right there. Funny how a thing can lurk around for months before it comes clear.
This is much better than the word I would have chosen:
"nekked"