It's a Sunday morning and my family is restored.
You are sitting alone at the head of the table,
You and its glass sharing a luminescence
that suffuses the fugitive morning.
Your newspaper before you, your coffee,
your huge grin. The house reverberates
in its old harmony, who’s allegiance,
we learned, was to you–not us. The same
sugary cereals, the same extra layer of fat
that you periodically determined to abandon.
More than anything–more than even you–
my family is full, vital, youthful again.
If a whole is more than the sum of its parts,
Your presence endowed the whole that refuses
quantification. Holidays that did not precipitate
Screaming between the uncles. Vacations
Complete without Bobbi’s tears; or reports of
how little she slept. She commands our audience
to her suffering. Everything is the version of
normal that we yearn for since you got sick,
but not the real one. I am once again a child
and I turn to my father, knowing there are
answers best ignored. “How did he kick open
the coffin and climb from the underground?”
He tells me it is better not to ask.
This is a cool example of ways the title of the poem serves the deeper meaning of the poem itself. I like how without the title, it is just an image, but the title makes it clear that not all is as it seems. Nice. More to say but I shall save it for workshop :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great ending, among other things, for this poem. I have a lot to say, but we are discussing it in class tomorrow. So more soon.
ReplyDeleteI love the tangible/intricate details like "sugary cereal" and "newspaper" among bigger more complex ideas like "luminescence" and "harmony." it's interesting how the poem shifts back and forth between reflecting on what it used to be, imagining what it would be, and knowing what it is like now. past, present, imagined future.
ReplyDeleteYou do such a great job at depicting a domestic (albeit imagined) scene.
ReplyDelete