Vortex by Michael Hofmann

Found in Selected Poems Michael Hofmann

Where was our high-water mark? Was it the glorious
oriental scimitar in the Metropolitan Museum
in New York? Nothing for a pussyfooting shake-hands grip:
your hand had to be a fist already to hold it ...
I wondered why the jewels were all clustered
on scabbard and hilt and basketed hadn-guard,
why there were none on the sward itself.
I could only guess that the blade leapt out
to protect them, like a stong father his family.

- Or next door, where, as the guide explained,
there was a deity in the ceiling, who would shower
genius or intellect or eyewash on those beneath?
And strightaway, to my fierce embarrassment,
you pushed me under it, an un-European moment -
though I tried also to relish the shiver of limelight.

- Or was it more even, less clinching, the many years
I used the basin after you had shaved in it?
It was my duty to shave the basin, rinsing
the circle of hairs frm its concave enamel face
till it was as smooth as yours ... I was almost there,
on the periphery of manhood, but I didn't have your gear:
the stiff brush of real badger (or was it beaver?);
the reserved cake of shaving soap: the safety razor
that opened like Aladdin's cave when I twirled the handle.
... That movement became an escape mechanism:
I was an orphan, a street Arab, waiting for you
in international lounges, at the foot of skyscrapers;
entertaining myself with the sprinker nozzles
secreted in the ceiling, whirling dervishes
sniffing out smoke, in a state of permanent readiness;
that have since emancipated me, like the razors
- cheapskate, disposable, no moving parts -
I now use myself ... The water drains away, laughing.
I light up, a new man.