Charlie Howard's Descent -- Mark Doty

[mercifulserpent]

Mark Doty

Charlie Howard's Descent



Between the bridge and the river

he falls through

a huge portion of night;

it is not as if falling



is something new. Over and over

he slipped into the gulf

between what he knew and how

he was known. What others wanted



opened like an abyss: the laughing

stock-clerks at the grocery, women

at the luncheonette amused by his gestures.

What could he do, live



with one hand tied

behind his back? So he began to fall

into the star-faced section

of night between the trestle



and the water because he could not meet

a little town's demands,

and his earrings shone and his wrists

were as limp as they were.



I imagine he took the insults in

and made of them a place to live;

we learn to use the names

because they are there,



familiar furniture: faggot

was the bed he slept in, hard

and white, but simple somehow,

queer something sharp



but finally useful, a tool,

all the jokes a chair,

stiff-backed to keep the spine straight,

a table, a lamp. And because



he's fallen for twenty-three years,

despite whatever awkwardness

his flailing arms and legs assume

he is beautiful



and like any good diver

has only an edge of fear

he transforms into grace.

Or else he is not afraid,



and in this way climbs back

up the ladder of his fall,

out of the river into the arms

of the three teenage boys



who hurled him from the edge -

really boys now, afraid,

their fathers' cars shivering behind them,

headlights on - and tells them



it's all right, that he knows

they didn't believe him

when he said he couldn't swim,

and blesses his killers



in the way that only the dead

can afford to forgive.





- Mark Doty



Used by permission.



Mark Doty's FIRE TO FIRE: New and Selected Poems won the National Book Award for poetry. He teaches at Rutgers University, and lives in New York City.



Doty was featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2008, when he read "Charlie Howard's Descent." You can watch video of that reading here.


Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Split This Rock
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info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Comments

[proudduckling.livejournal.com]

That one makes me cry every time.

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

I never knew about Charlie Howard's murder, and have now just wikied it--how terrible (and really kind of unsettling that Stephen King appropriated it for a scene in IT, for that matter). Thank you for sharing this.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

I hadn't made the SK connection! Ugh. The only thing I can think of that MIGHT make it okay is that SK is from that area, so it might not be an appropriation so much as a way of highlighting the general racism/homophobia of Maine? I feel like he does that a lot by incorporating local history.

At the same time, instead of it being homophobia/racism borne out of power, oppression, etc., it's because of monsters. :-/

[mermaidnchains.livejournal.com]

Now, why you wanna go make me cry?

Actually a truly beautiful piece. Crying doesn't mean I didn't love it.

[1ove.livejournal.com]

wow.