I had to come back in and revise because I forgot to note the prompt from ReadWritePoem.Org. This week we were to write of Memories, Meals… Food but not recipes. Ofcourse my associations leaped to Thanksgivings and how much they haven’t been what I wish they have been. This year will be slightly different and perhaps, in several years, fodder for a poem written by me or perhaps one of my children.
Day before yesterday I was talking to my friend, Cameron, who asked how important it was to me whether or not I liked the art I create. He is a professor of Art, he can’t help himself. I told him it was very important and yet, now, I realize there are oftentimes poems and stories and paintings I create that I love/hate. This poem falls into that category. I love/hate reading it and I loved/hated writing it.
Still, First, Almost, Too Long
Brown eyes held humiliation
Seen as not acceptable
Relational earthquake leave active
Decades old aftershocks rumbling
Still
Forty years later she can still feel it:
Her nose, pressed against the
Holiday family gathering glass
Her breath finally obstructing
The view she longed to be inside
Once again, ever after it felt I
Watched my friends
Prepare for cousins after
Cousins after cousins
First, the tears
Dad’s face became
Plate decoration
Cheap table burgundy
Induced Dessert substitute
They each pretended away
Until speaking
Of tradition a someday
Poet said, “Oh, like
The tradition of Daddy,
‘falling asleep’ at
The table, right?”
The poet vowed her
Someday children wouldn’t
Know the ache of the nose
Pressed against the glass or
Breathing so long the view
Goes away
Newlywed meal for twenty two
In an inner-city, funky apartment
Surrounded by smells from
El Salvador and Guatemala and
Bombay, Turkey roasted and
Football was watched (on silent)
An amalgam “family” gathered
No pressed noses, no hidden wishes
Because it was there, right there
The almost joy
November after Marlena died
They all came to her
Hither and yon cars pulled
Into her cracking driveway
She bought fresh flowers
Decorated her new home
Roasted the turkey and cooked
Cranberry sauce from scratch
Everyone exclaimed delight
And giggled and laughed and
Played catch in the front yard but
No one mentioned her dead daughter’s name
In her late night tears she made it
Just fine, anyway
Too long separated
Her silent vow long broken
As her children’s noses flatten
Three matching noses, matching
Blue eyes, matching longing, matching
Just this edge of sorrow
They watch their friends
Prepare for cousins after cousins
After cousins without theirs
Brown eyes held humiliation
Seen as not acceptable
Relational earthquake leave active
Decades old aftershocks rumbling
still
Once again, I still feel it.
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