That Day

Music by Paul Nahay
Words by Anne Sexton
Composed 1980
Performed 1981 April 27
Paul Nahay, piano
University of Maryland
College Park campus

This is the desk I sit at
And this is the desk where I love you too much
And this is the typewriter that sits before me
Where yesterday only your body sat before me
With its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus
With its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes
With its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping milk
With its tongue both of us coiled in its slippery life
That was yesterday
That day
That was the day of your tongue
Your tongue that came from your lips
Half animals half birds
Caught in the doorway of your heart
That was the day I followed the kings rules
Passing by your red veins and your blue veins
My hands down the backone
Down quick like a firepole

Hands between legs where you display your inner knowledge
Where diamond mines are buried
And come forth to bury
Come forth more sudden than some reconstructed city
It is complete within seconds
That monument the blood runs underground
Yet brings forth a tower
A multitude should gather for such an edifice
For a miracle one stands in line and thorws confetti
Surely the press is here looking for headlines
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk
If a bridge is constructed
Doesn't the mayor cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives
Shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?

Yesterday was the day
I bore gifts for your gift
And came from the valley
To meet you on the pavement
That was yesterday
That day

That was the day of your face
Your face after love close to the pillow
A lullaby half asleep
Beside me letting the old fashioned rocker stop
Our breath became one
Became a child-breath together
While my fingers drew little O's on your shut eyes
While my fingers drew little smiles on your mouth
While I drew "I love you" on your chest
And its drummer and whispered "Wake up"
And you mumbled in your sleep
"Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod
We're heading for the Bourne Bridge
We're circling around the Bourne Circle"
Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream
And prayed of our time that I would be pierced
And you would take root in me
And that I might bring forth your born
Might bear the you or the ghost of you in my little household

Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed
But this is the typewriter that sits before me
And love is where yesterday is at.

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Music

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• that
• day
• soprano
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• violin
• cello