Rob took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. Then he pressed his forehead into the grass, which was damp and cool with dew. From the open windows of the auditorium the tinny music ground on, to the rumble of wheels. I’ll have to leave, I can’t explain, I’ll never be able to face them. But then he realized that nobody had really seen but her, and she couldn’t tell. He was safe. And who was that, in the bright room at the back of his room, that man in the green gown and the mask, under the glass bubble, raising the knife?

Lives of the Poets

Lying on the bathroom floor of this anonymous hotel room, my feet up on the edge of the bathtub and a cold wet washcloth balled at the back of my neck. Bloody nosebleed. A good adjective, it works, as the students say in those creative writing classes that are sometimes part of the package. So colourful. Never had a nosebleed before, what are you supposed to do? An icecube would be nice. Image of the Coke-and-ice machine at the end of the hall, me streaking toward it, a white towel over my head, the bloodstain spreading through it. A hotel guest opens his roomdoor. Horrors, an accident. Stabbed in the nose. Doesn’t want to get involved, the roomdoor shuts, my quarter jams the machine. I’ll stick with the washcloth.

The air’s too dry, that must be it, nothing to do with me or the protests of the soggy body. Osmosis. Blood to the outside because there’s not enough water vapour; they keep the radiators going full blast and no switch to shut them off. Cheapskates, why couldn’t I stay at the Holiday Inn? Instead it’s this one, pseudo-Elizabethan motifs tacked to a mouse-eaten frame, somebody’s last-ditch attempt to make something out of this corner of the woods. The outskirts of Sudbury, nickel-smelting capital of the world. Can we show you around, they said. I’d like to see the slagheaps, and the places where the vegetation has all been scorched off. Oh, ha ha, they said. It’s growing back, they raised the stacks. It’s turning into quite a, you know, civilized place. I used to like it, I said, it looked like the moon. There’s something to be said for a place where absolutely nothing grows. Bald. Dead. Clean as a bone. Know what I mean? Furtive glances at one another, young beardy faces, one pipe-smokes, they write footnotes, on their way up, why do we always get stuck with the visiting poet? Last one threw up on the car rug. Just wait till we get tenure.

Julia moved her head. The blood trickled gently down the back of her throat, thick and purple-tasting. She had been sitting there in front of the phone, trying to figure out the instructions for calling long distance through the hotel operator, when she’d sneezed and the page in front of her had been suddenly spattered with blood. Totally unprovoked. And Bernie would be hanging around at home, waiting for her to call. In two hours she had to give the reading. A gracious introduction, she would rise and move to the microphone, smiling, she would open her mouth and blood would start to drip from her nose. Would they clap? Would they pretend not to notice? Would they think it was part of the poem? She would have to start rooting around in her purse for a Kleenex, or, better still, she’d faint, and someone else would have to cope. (But everyone would think she was drunk.) How upsetting for the committee. Would they pay her anyway? She could imagine them discussing it. She raised her head a little, to see if it had stopped.

Something that felt like a warm slug crawled down towards her upper lip. She licked, tasting salt. How was she going to get to the phone? On her back, creeping supine across the floor, using her elbows and pushing with her feet, a swimming motion, like a giant aquatic insect. She shouldn’t be calling Bernie, she should be calling a doctor. But it wasn’t serious enough. Something like this always happened when she had to give a reading, something painful but too minor for a doctor. Besides, it was always out of town, she never knew any doctors. Once it was a bad cold; her voice had sounded as if it was coming through a layer of mud. Once her hands and ankles had swelled up. Headaches were standard: she never got headaches at home. It was as if something was against these readings and was trying to keep her from giving them. She was waiting for it to take a more drastic form, paralysis of the jaw muscles, temporary blindness, fits. This was what she thought about during the introductions, always: herself on a stretcher, the waiting ambulance, then waking up, safe and cured, with Bernie sitting beside the bed. He would smile at her, he would kiss her forehead, he would tell her—what? Some magical thing. They had won the Wintario Lottery. He’d been left a lot of money. The gallery was solvent. Something that would mean she didn’t have to do this any more.

That was the problem: they needed the money. They had always needed the money, for the whole four years they had lived together, and they still needed it. At first it hadn’t seemed so important. Bernie was on a grant then, painting, and after that he got a renewal. She had a part-time job, cataloguing in a library. Then she had a book published, by one of the medium-sized houses, and got a grant herself. Of course she quit her job, to make the best use of the time. But Bernie ran out of money, and he had trouble selling paintings. Even when he did sell one, the dealer got most of it. The dealer system was wrong, he told her, and he and two other painters opened a co-operative artists’ gallery which, after a lot of talk, they decided to call The Notes from Underground. One of the other painters had money, but they didn’t want to take advantage of him; they would go strict thirds. Bernie explained all this to her, and he was so enthusiastic it had seemed natural to lend him half of her grant money, just to get things going. As soon as they began to show a profit, he said, he would pay her back. He even gave her two shares in the gallery. They hadn’t started to show a profit yet, though, and, as Bernie pointed out, she didn’t really need the money back right at the moment. She could get some more. She now had a reputation; a small one, but still, she could earn money easier and faster than he could, travelling around and giving readings on college campuses. She was “promising,” which meant that she was cheaper than those who were more than promising. She got enough invitations to keep them going, and though she debated the merits of each one with Bernie, hoping he would veto, he had never yet advised her to turn one down. But to be fair, she had never told him quite how much she hated it, the stares of the eyes, her own voice detached and floating, the one destructive question that was sure to lurk there among all the blank ones. I mean, do you really think you have anything to say?

Deep in February, deep in the snow, bleeding on the tiles of this bathroom floor. By turning her head she could see them, white hexagons linked like a honeycomb, with a single black tile at regular intervals.

For a measly hundred and twenty-five dollars—but it’s half the rent, don’t forget that—and twenty-five a day for expenses. Had to take the morning plane, no seats in the afternoon, who the hell goes to Sudbury in February? A bunch of engineers. Practical citizens, digging out the ore, making a bundle, two cars and a swimming pool. They don’t stay at this place, anyway. Diningroom at lunchtime almost empty. Just me and a very old man who talked to himself out loud. What’s wrong with him? I said to the waitress. Is he crazy?

In a whisper I said it. It’s okay, he’s deaf, she said. No, he’s just lonely, he’s been real lonely ever since his wife died. He lives here. I guess it’s better than an old-age home, you know? There are more people here in the summertime. And we get a lot of men who’re separating from their wives. You can always tell them, by what they order.