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Valentine's DayShe remembered her father wrapping her motherin his arms by the sink as if this was the cool drink he'd wanted all day, how she didn't want the kids to see. She'd give him her lips, but her arms stayed, one hand on the rim of dishwater, the other clutched an apron. It took her years to open her own straight arms, to forget what she'd learned. A friend's partner is dying the way her father did, the same decayed appetite, pain but the remaining will to work at what he loved. Day after day men bring these bodies to the novel they believe in or the wooden flat of seedlings they insist on planting. The French teacher plans the student trip to chateau country even as the verb for death conjugates itself in his flesh. We don't want to walk this narrowing trail of our bodies. When her husband's stroke froze his vision, his hand limp, she noticed her sight going as well; her hand could hardly grip the fork and the morning paper blurred. And her husband Who would not recognize himself for weeks wanted simply to grip the list of strikes and errors in the World Series of that fall. It's Valentine's Day and the rosy snow-limned peaks she sees after snatching the rolled news from the street arch so like hearts she thinks, it is good some god continues to surprise us. But this morning's buttered toast, the whine and drum of girls' complaints about hair and school, his perusal of the sports section, the familiar tilt his eyes make with the last drag of coffee—none of it is certain. Then, her family's backing down the drive Her bare feet bounce up and down on concrete. The dog leaps. She's waving, her robe untied, blowing kisses, both arms flying from her sides. |
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Issue #15, April, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.