Wednesday, November 18, 2009
THE STORY OF MY GRANDMA DYING
Nothing wears me out like a good drive from my parents' house to my grandparents' house. The excruciating sightlessness I suffer toward nightfall, the potted plants always upright in my backseat. Stuck inside the alcoves.
In a more perfect car I would reach lows often. Lows that help me drive away in favor of a less dependent existence. The horror of my presence is the recognition that I can keep for days if only I'd give birth to children and the MEN MEN MEN who'd have me do this are Lutheran Ministers.
Color in the dots while my father talks on the phone. I won't get pulled over in P.A. Some sort of photographic fantasy, I drive toward a belt down south and take photos of poor farmers, take Walker Evans' camera strap, take Walker Evans' hand until I have enough money to develop my relationships. Until I have enough shuttering poems that my boyfriend is willing to read. Take a break from my boyfriend lifting his hand under my skirt, I shake a bag of candy in my mouth, clink against my teeth and each other. A pile of people. Crunch as I chew. My boyfriend Walker Evans is asleep and always wants me back in bed in the backseat of his van. We don't even walk in the winter, a pattern I've noticed. Nothing to do but sleep until it's time for coffee til it's time to eat until his hand is up my skirt and we are pushing our heads against each other.
My grandfather peeks in the door crack, then turns to my grandmother. "Layin' on her bed writin'" he says. And my grandma is dead. I'll tell the next story.
THE DAY I GOT HERPES: a short story of fiction
Half-way between the sidewalk where
MY FINGERS SMELL BRASSY
LIKE A TRUMPET
Is a Tupperware bin of midnight snacks I've had this summer: cheese and margarine sandwich on white bread inspired by The Thirty-Nine Steps, strawberry shortcake I ate while I wrote letters, and stuffed shells I shoveled in my mouth while my boyfriend, stoned, stared. Mostly I get thirsty and I get worried.
"Don't you trust me?" he asked.
"No," I say.
"That's bad."
And I have lied.
Sure. Here is my poem.
Summer all I drank
was seltzer water with
no-calorie syrup.
The poison stuff. The
rot-your-brain.
I de-toxed by vomiting, by
raisin bran into the
toilet. All coffee
only. A minister grabbed
my ass. Texted me: "Elusive,
Obama is the anti-Christ."
We went vegan, or he
ate two hotdogs, we drank
water from teacups in the
fellowship hall. "To be young
and beautiful," the sneakered
organist muttered as I
passed. Smack and smack.
My thighs are rubbing
together under my red dress,
sweat between them. I think
of friction at night in bed,
the minister looks Norwegian
with a red face and blond
hair. He is tall. The spirit with
him. Some things seem
stupider than others. My
vegetarianism. The out-of-state
Primate Act. Seem stupid because
infant boys are raped. Because
I can't roll up my collar. Take
a photograph at waist-level.
And re-writing my grandmother's
epileptic fit can be summed up
in one picture: strings of drool
dropping on her lap.
All childhood my parents helped
me know that I was far more logical
than adults. What a cruel world
to find not every person sees this
on first glance. I'm better!
I am the best.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Deep in Brittle Waters
On this day the wind blows up my shirt sleeves. I lie so long flatbacked in the grass my temple and my upper forehead ache as if they're losing blood.
How strange that a thing can focus briefly and retract. That the women in my Pennsylvania bank have accents from deep south. That I begin to speak with coffee on my breath and without gs on gerunds. That the women in the bank, they handed me candy and I did not want it but I accepted because it made them happy to see me happy.
A STORY
In the night she hears her grandmother cry out. It is a dreading voice, starting at a fevered pitch and lowering in slow descent. It reminds her of crackling black and white movies, a slim and muscular man grabs a woman with his hands and she cries out until he presses his face against hers, or carries her off-screen. This is the sound her grandmother makes in the night.
FINISHED
How strange I had convinced myself The Ending of a thing, I cried for this thing and deleted its history from me. And then it changed and did not disappear. How strange that there have been so many goods I can't remember all of them. So many that I can afford to forget months at a time.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
Nana is the name I've called my father's mother for twenty-two and some-such years. She was weakening last winter and I did not realize those would be my last days with her as Nana. Before her conscience went away. Before she crippled physically and all her knobbly grandma fingers dug themselves into a hole and pulled whole clumps of dirt on top. Now she hardly looks up when I greet her in the morning. Now I forget to kiss her when I wake and when I bake her casseroles they are too difficult for her to chew. The table is not set quite properly. Everything is wrong, the window is not closed, I have slept too late and talked to her the wrong way. "What's with this lid?" she asked Pop when his 92-year brain forgot to close it. When I say she's being mean, she tells me: "If you'd do it the same way the second time…" Her days blend together. She is wrong and I see she is wrong but there is no use, Julie Louisa (the way she'd write it on ceramic ornaments), no use in proving that she's wrong because my point is not to beat her down. My point is to let her know she's making me sad and upset. Appeal to her, Nana you are hurting my feelings. Do not beat her down though these are the feelings she provokes in me. She is a dying woman. Do not beat her down.
How strange that a thing can focus briefly and retract. That the women in my Pennsylvania bank have accents from deep south. That I begin to speak with coffee on my breath and without gs on gerunds. That the women in the bank, they handed me candy and I did not want it but I accepted because it made them happy to see me happy.
A STORY
In the night she hears her grandmother cry out. It is a dreading voice, starting at a fevered pitch and lowering in slow descent. It reminds her of crackling black and white movies, a slim and muscular man grabs a woman with his hands and she cries out until he presses his face against hers, or carries her off-screen. This is the sound her grandmother makes in the night.
FINISHED
How strange I had convinced myself The Ending of a thing, I cried for this thing and deleted its history from me. And then it changed and did not disappear. How strange that there have been so many goods I can't remember all of them. So many that I can afford to forget months at a time.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
Nana is the name I've called my father's mother for twenty-two and some-such years. She was weakening last winter and I did not realize those would be my last days with her as Nana. Before her conscience went away. Before she crippled physically and all her knobbly grandma fingers dug themselves into a hole and pulled whole clumps of dirt on top. Now she hardly looks up when I greet her in the morning. Now I forget to kiss her when I wake and when I bake her casseroles they are too difficult for her to chew. The table is not set quite properly. Everything is wrong, the window is not closed, I have slept too late and talked to her the wrong way. "What's with this lid?" she asked Pop when his 92-year brain forgot to close it. When I say she's being mean, she tells me: "If you'd do it the same way the second time…" Her days blend together. She is wrong and I see she is wrong but there is no use, Julie Louisa (the way she'd write it on ceramic ornaments), no use in proving that she's wrong because my point is not to beat her down. My point is to let her know she's making me sad and upset. Appeal to her, Nana you are hurting my feelings. Do not beat her down though these are the feelings she provokes in me. She is a dying woman. Do not beat her down.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Holding Still
It becomes clear and obvious to me what Nana is. She is not a ringing, clapping cellphone on a bus. She is not the cask of fireworks ten miles outside New York City. But I see her in this skeleton, this skull of a face looking at her ceiling in the morning. There are sheer white curtains behind her and they do not move. Neither does she move except to ask if I am helping her get up. This fragment of a woman. Fleck of paint from house. When I change her pants the muscles of her small buttocks are childlike in size and smoothness. Her husband helps her change the pad that catches her excrements. They speckle dark against her milky skin and I see how her body has evolved from teen-aged legs and arms, living off her grandma's bread, cookies always in the jar and each day on the farm pressing harder in this land, walking for more hours to the weathered schoolhouse. She awakes in bed, lofted beside bags of flour and she gangles to the touch, the fingers of my grandfather who wears suspenders touch her, a fresh white shirt on Sundays, even now at ninety-two he props his felt hat on his head. I ask to take his picture. "Ooh," he makes a snoot and I say, "Outside?"
The night the lightning strikes our power out, Pop taps my door and opens it. I hang up my phone, sensing something wrong. "We'll get the oil lamp," he says, tinkering through Christmas mugs that Nana painted when her fingers once were steady. He feels the glass curves of the lamp and pulls it out, slow now, as I spread my palms up near (in case) to catch the fallen.
The night a thunder growls so loud it sounds as though a plate has cracked on top us. The picture frames are swirling in my view of gas and wick fumes. An oil lamp, my first time that I've seen one--it's the same my grandmother and grandfather were given when they married, same from the house they first lived together. Nana was nineteen. Seventy years later, now, her bowels give out--she leaks brown circles through her pants and onto chairs. This same man across the room from her, this man with his same set of bones, this man who put himself inside her on their wedding night stark broke deep in depression--this man, he changes all her clothes four times each day, he presses buttons on the washer and pours capfuls of blue liquid on the clothes before he shuts the lid. This man who's seen her naked body for almost three-quarters of a century.
Morning after the big storm, I walk across the rain-soaked lawn to Pop's car. Going to New York by bus, I wait and buy my ticket, step up to take a seat. Except two others, it is empty. I rest my head against the glass and fall to sleep.
Eight AM, there is a voice: "I got you something from the Disney store and I picked you up three Mickeys." It is a woman back behind me. "Walked up to Trump Towers and had an ice cream. I had fun. You know, it was too short. I'm sorry that you're sick. Sat down after supper, watched Mama Mia, and fell asleep. I've been up every morning at quarter to six, can't sleep past then. Well. Take some lozenges, gurgle with salt water. There's strep going around, don't you get sick. Alright. Tell Sally we said 'Hi,' tell her hello. Love you. Mhm." I turn around. A thick-striped black bag. Her Disney Store merchandise, gold watch and pink nails. Four bracelets on one wrist. Dark bobbypins in pale hair. I smell an orange. She ate at Planet Hollywood.
In New York with friends, my time is rested with caffeine. Soon Tuesday arrives, the night I wait in a hotel chair. Sit across the room from a Jewish couple, one boy and one girl, looking to get married and then touch. It's about the jaw-line of this girl, her tight-dark undershirt. White ruffled, crop-sleeved overpiece. Earrings and the hairband on her head. A voice that whisps through front teeth. The man speaks through hand motions, an upturned palm that lifts and then the other hand (previously resting on the chair-arm) joins to open downward, then points over. "Many girls wouldn't have this discussion," he says. She responds, "I have a friend--" the chatting laughter of the black siblings behind me--all boys--raise over this good Jewish conversation. There must be a wedding here, tomorrow morn.
The Jews, they speak of shabbos and the girl looks with a parted mouth. A skeptical-lined forehead. He pats at his yarmulke and says something I cannot hear. The girl giggles. Her hair is dark and layered in front of her shoulders. The man's dark hat is on the table. The girl smiles. The man says, "Very good question, very good question. Trying to turn the myth into the movie." The girl: she speaks faster and with breathy, whistling accent. New York for sure, she clicks her tongue and says "gaw" instead of "go." She nods her head when speaking and a black baby screams up loud back me from the hallway. She talks about her synagogue, a program for the girls with privacy, each girl--she is assured to know the family before she stays there. She wears a linking necklace. So much money, her mother (with a wig), she must be gorgeous. This music is a soundtrack to all 1940s movies--the movies where the thin-slacked pants rise up men's bellybuttons. The movies where the women, they are bombshells and wear gloves, make love to men by falling back into their armcrooks and they kiss by pressing at each others' faces, holding still.
The Jewish girl is speaking of the summer camp she worked at and was counselor. Woodward and four-corners, right down the block from here is where the camp is. "No, I'm saying Sarah's cute," tongue-click, "She's so much fun." I look up and she sees me. Uses her hand to straighten from her wrist and motion where the camp is, out her house and down the block.
My ride here on the subways and a bus. I got misdirected four times. Walking out of Devon's neighborhood, a boy my age passed me. "Hey snowflake," he said and stopped, "What's your name, girl? Need a little chocolate in that cream?" I told him, "Have a good day." Though confronted, I was comfortable there, the families and the lack of tension as when I lived in Fort Greene. There was a contempt, a fear from all the white people that black people will hurt their skin and steal their wallets. A huge tension with all the inequality. But there--at Devon's, in that neighborhood--there is comfort. People are not avoiding. This is how mothers lived and how these sidewalks formed, grilling on the street and there is little catcalling. When it happens, it is a different dynamic--different from the aggression of Flatbush. It is tender, ready for acceptance or retreat. An actual response is sought. But Flatbush--those hisses and snide comments on my breasts and upper thighs, those comments that pulled my body from its skin, slabbed it on the floor and kicked it.
The girl, she just stood up. Smiled, and she pointed to the bathroom. A starched and wired ribbon cinched around her waist. A black skirt reaching past her knees and stockings tan her three inches of legs, top of her feet until her loafers. The man who I await is here now and I can't pick up his scent yet but he must be here.
In the morning I will call my grandfather, he will tell me what he's done. Ask me if I've called my father, if I know what's happened to "her," his name for my grandmother. I will tell him "Yes," and when I say, "I love you," he will say, "Yep," in response.
The night the lightning strikes our power out, Pop taps my door and opens it. I hang up my phone, sensing something wrong. "We'll get the oil lamp," he says, tinkering through Christmas mugs that Nana painted when her fingers once were steady. He feels the glass curves of the lamp and pulls it out, slow now, as I spread my palms up near (in case) to catch the fallen.
The night a thunder growls so loud it sounds as though a plate has cracked on top us. The picture frames are swirling in my view of gas and wick fumes. An oil lamp, my first time that I've seen one--it's the same my grandmother and grandfather were given when they married, same from the house they first lived together. Nana was nineteen. Seventy years later, now, her bowels give out--she leaks brown circles through her pants and onto chairs. This same man across the room from her, this man with his same set of bones, this man who put himself inside her on their wedding night stark broke deep in depression--this man, he changes all her clothes four times each day, he presses buttons on the washer and pours capfuls of blue liquid on the clothes before he shuts the lid. This man who's seen her naked body for almost three-quarters of a century.
Morning after the big storm, I walk across the rain-soaked lawn to Pop's car. Going to New York by bus, I wait and buy my ticket, step up to take a seat. Except two others, it is empty. I rest my head against the glass and fall to sleep.
Eight AM, there is a voice: "I got you something from the Disney store and I picked you up three Mickeys." It is a woman back behind me. "Walked up to Trump Towers and had an ice cream. I had fun. You know, it was too short. I'm sorry that you're sick. Sat down after supper, watched Mama Mia, and fell asleep. I've been up every morning at quarter to six, can't sleep past then. Well. Take some lozenges, gurgle with salt water. There's strep going around, don't you get sick. Alright. Tell Sally we said 'Hi,' tell her hello. Love you. Mhm." I turn around. A thick-striped black bag. Her Disney Store merchandise, gold watch and pink nails. Four bracelets on one wrist. Dark bobbypins in pale hair. I smell an orange. She ate at Planet Hollywood.
In New York with friends, my time is rested with caffeine. Soon Tuesday arrives, the night I wait in a hotel chair. Sit across the room from a Jewish couple, one boy and one girl, looking to get married and then touch. It's about the jaw-line of this girl, her tight-dark undershirt. White ruffled, crop-sleeved overpiece. Earrings and the hairband on her head. A voice that whisps through front teeth. The man speaks through hand motions, an upturned palm that lifts and then the other hand (previously resting on the chair-arm) joins to open downward, then points over. "Many girls wouldn't have this discussion," he says. She responds, "I have a friend--" the chatting laughter of the black siblings behind me--all boys--raise over this good Jewish conversation. There must be a wedding here, tomorrow morn.
The Jews, they speak of shabbos and the girl looks with a parted mouth. A skeptical-lined forehead. He pats at his yarmulke and says something I cannot hear. The girl giggles. Her hair is dark and layered in front of her shoulders. The man's dark hat is on the table. The girl smiles. The man says, "Very good question, very good question. Trying to turn the myth into the movie." The girl: she speaks faster and with breathy, whistling accent. New York for sure, she clicks her tongue and says "gaw" instead of "go." She nods her head when speaking and a black baby screams up loud back me from the hallway. She talks about her synagogue, a program for the girls with privacy, each girl--she is assured to know the family before she stays there. She wears a linking necklace. So much money, her mother (with a wig), she must be gorgeous. This music is a soundtrack to all 1940s movies--the movies where the thin-slacked pants rise up men's bellybuttons. The movies where the women, they are bombshells and wear gloves, make love to men by falling back into their armcrooks and they kiss by pressing at each others' faces, holding still.
The Jewish girl is speaking of the summer camp she worked at and was counselor. Woodward and four-corners, right down the block from here is where the camp is. "No, I'm saying Sarah's cute," tongue-click, "She's so much fun." I look up and she sees me. Uses her hand to straighten from her wrist and motion where the camp is, out her house and down the block.
My ride here on the subways and a bus. I got misdirected four times. Walking out of Devon's neighborhood, a boy my age passed me. "Hey snowflake," he said and stopped, "What's your name, girl? Need a little chocolate in that cream?" I told him, "Have a good day." Though confronted, I was comfortable there, the families and the lack of tension as when I lived in Fort Greene. There was a contempt, a fear from all the white people that black people will hurt their skin and steal their wallets. A huge tension with all the inequality. But there--at Devon's, in that neighborhood--there is comfort. People are not avoiding. This is how mothers lived and how these sidewalks formed, grilling on the street and there is little catcalling. When it happens, it is a different dynamic--different from the aggression of Flatbush. It is tender, ready for acceptance or retreat. An actual response is sought. But Flatbush--those hisses and snide comments on my breasts and upper thighs, those comments that pulled my body from its skin, slabbed it on the floor and kicked it.
The girl, she just stood up. Smiled, and she pointed to the bathroom. A starched and wired ribbon cinched around her waist. A black skirt reaching past her knees and stockings tan her three inches of legs, top of her feet until her loafers. The man who I await is here now and I can't pick up his scent yet but he must be here.
In the morning I will call my grandfather, he will tell me what he's done. Ask me if I've called my father, if I know what's happened to "her," his name for my grandmother. I will tell him "Yes," and when I say, "I love you," he will say, "Yep," in response.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Cut up red beets.
Irene:
Just thought I'd drop a line. Yesterday I did some baking--hope you like it:
Hamburger Helper.
Carrot Cake.
Blueberry Muffins.
It was such a beautiful day. Butch mowes my lawn. Sure looks velvety. The weeds grow so fast.
Barbara gave me a beautiful bouquet. The Baby Orchids are so pretty.
Take care and May God Bless.
Love,
Ellen.
. . ... . .. . . . . . .. .
Homer and Irene,
I enjoyed being at your 70th Ann. get to-gether. It was so nice to see so many of your family. And I enjoyed the food. The ice-cream was so good. Grape-Nut esp.
As I left I told the young people in the garage that I would not remember their names. Johnny's little one was so energetic.
I was very surprised to receive the $10.00 Gift Certificate from Weis for being the oldest woman. When John (pres.) gave the prayer he mentioned you (Irene) for better health. Hope each day you gain strength.
Take care and May God Bless.
Love,
Ellen.
Just thought I'd drop a line. Yesterday I did some baking--hope you like it:
Hamburger Helper.
Carrot Cake.
Blueberry Muffins.
It was such a beautiful day. Butch mowes my lawn. Sure looks velvety. The weeds grow so fast.
Barbara gave me a beautiful bouquet. The Baby Orchids are so pretty.
Take care and May God Bless.
Love,
Ellen.
. . ... . .. . . . . . .. .
Homer and Irene,
I enjoyed being at your 70th Ann. get to-gether. It was so nice to see so many of your family. And I enjoyed the food. The ice-cream was so good. Grape-Nut esp.
As I left I told the young people in the garage that I would not remember their names. Johnny's little one was so energetic.
I was very surprised to receive the $10.00 Gift Certificate from Weis for being the oldest woman. When John (pres.) gave the prayer he mentioned you (Irene) for better health. Hope each day you gain strength.
Take care and May God Bless.
Love,
Ellen.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Trees Growed Up
Two things have affected me today: Seeing my grandmother nude. Reading in the Home Instead journal: "Slight Dementia" in my grandfather. Yes. And I suppose I've never viewed it in this way. They are dying, yes.
Woke up at 8:30. The Home Instead Lady came, reminded me of Lisa Emig. I felt comfortable with her, the paunch around her middle and the lumps curved outward at her thighs. She bathed Nana, did exercises with her, cleaned the sink and swept the kitchen floor. When she left, Nana said to me, "You see how that woman was cleaning? Always doing something?" This was a nudging to me: be a better granddaughter, a prodding. Dust the shelves.
I asked if she would go to church tomorrow. "Why don't you want to go?" and she said, "'Cause," as she does. "Because why?" "Just 'cause." "There has to be a reason you do not want to go," I say. And then it comes: she is afraid of not making it up the ramp, inside the church. Afraid of falling, of fainting. "We got you to Maxine's," I say, "church will be easy. I promise you." She looks from the television to my face. "I didn't feel as safe as I do other times," and I ask her to repeat. I do not understand. I do not understand until she tells me: I did not help her over the cracks in Maxine's walkway. I did not support the way I should have. I spotted her, ready for a waver or loss of balance. I did not wish to insult her by helping her through everything. "I will be better, now," I tell her, "Now I know."
Later, I ask again: what of church? She says, upset, she will not go because she does not feel well. She has not gone to bathroom in so long. "Okay," I say. I will not ask again.
Pop read what we'd written yesterday in To Our Children's Children, said he wanted us to write more. He and I, we drove to Harold's and I was frightened (for the first time) at his driving as he sorted through his mail against the steering wheel, driving into traffic. "Pop!" I shout and he aligns himself.
We had conversation about how she wasn't sleeping well. Again she said she'd only slept til 3 AM and so I told her: you are sleeping in your chair too much. Maybe it would help if you got up more. "I think I get up plenty," she said, to which I said "Alright." But it seems this made a difference--today she walked around most every hour of the day, and even asked me (at 5:40 PM, walking to the kitchen) if she should come for supper. At 9 PM she was tired, dozing in her chair and so I sat typing at the table near her, coughing or knocking at the table when her mouth dropped open. I wish I had a tuba.
We watched Polka Dance and Doctor Schuler. Pop took shower for tomorrow morning's church. His and my relationship, it grows and grows each day, he laughing at the strangest things. "This one's always a mix-up," he says while finding the top of Nana's comforter--the purple stripe that covers her pillow--and pulls it overtop. There's joy in him. A man accepting all his body as it leaks and slows and sallows yellow. He can't taste, he says, nor smell, and yes this bothers him but he speaks of it as his wayward child: still he loves it, all its flaws and mishaps.
The clocks in my grandmother's house. Their tickings and the cuckoo bird that pops his head out from the roof. The inventor of the german clock has died. His legacy is fleeting and his buck's antlers spike upward on his wall.
Here is what I see when I am sad: my grandmother in the photo booth. Age nineteen, just married. "Irene Hagenbuch," she writes across the back in scratching pen.
When I cry for my grandmother, I am sad because my fading girlhood hope ends here as she, with a husband who does laundry, heats her food. She mutters "Homer" seven times from her chair and yells at him for never being good enough. Never being good enough to help her live forever.
In the night, I hear them shouting from their bedroom. "You can see it," Nana says, or maybe: "You can't see it." Pop walks out in white boxer-briefs and v-neck undershirt. An angel. He goes into the bathroom and emerges seconds later. "Is everything okay?" I ask and he does not respond, just walks onward to the closet, grabs a washcloth (maybe wets it) and goes into the bedroom. I walk away and hear more shouting. "Shut the door," Nana says. Pop responds, "Now what?"
Woke up at 8:30. The Home Instead Lady came, reminded me of Lisa Emig. I felt comfortable with her, the paunch around her middle and the lumps curved outward at her thighs. She bathed Nana, did exercises with her, cleaned the sink and swept the kitchen floor. When she left, Nana said to me, "You see how that woman was cleaning? Always doing something?" This was a nudging to me: be a better granddaughter, a prodding. Dust the shelves.
I asked if she would go to church tomorrow. "Why don't you want to go?" and she said, "'Cause," as she does. "Because why?" "Just 'cause." "There has to be a reason you do not want to go," I say. And then it comes: she is afraid of not making it up the ramp, inside the church. Afraid of falling, of fainting. "We got you to Maxine's," I say, "church will be easy. I promise you." She looks from the television to my face. "I didn't feel as safe as I do other times," and I ask her to repeat. I do not understand. I do not understand until she tells me: I did not help her over the cracks in Maxine's walkway. I did not support the way I should have. I spotted her, ready for a waver or loss of balance. I did not wish to insult her by helping her through everything. "I will be better, now," I tell her, "Now I know."
Later, I ask again: what of church? She says, upset, she will not go because she does not feel well. She has not gone to bathroom in so long. "Okay," I say. I will not ask again.
Pop read what we'd written yesterday in To Our Children's Children, said he wanted us to write more. He and I, we drove to Harold's and I was frightened (for the first time) at his driving as he sorted through his mail against the steering wheel, driving into traffic. "Pop!" I shout and he aligns himself.
We had conversation about how she wasn't sleeping well. Again she said she'd only slept til 3 AM and so I told her: you are sleeping in your chair too much. Maybe it would help if you got up more. "I think I get up plenty," she said, to which I said "Alright." But it seems this made a difference--today she walked around most every hour of the day, and even asked me (at 5:40 PM, walking to the kitchen) if she should come for supper. At 9 PM she was tired, dozing in her chair and so I sat typing at the table near her, coughing or knocking at the table when her mouth dropped open. I wish I had a tuba.
We watched Polka Dance and Doctor Schuler. Pop took shower for tomorrow morning's church. His and my relationship, it grows and grows each day, he laughing at the strangest things. "This one's always a mix-up," he says while finding the top of Nana's comforter--the purple stripe that covers her pillow--and pulls it overtop. There's joy in him. A man accepting all his body as it leaks and slows and sallows yellow. He can't taste, he says, nor smell, and yes this bothers him but he speaks of it as his wayward child: still he loves it, all its flaws and mishaps.
The clocks in my grandmother's house. Their tickings and the cuckoo bird that pops his head out from the roof. The inventor of the german clock has died. His legacy is fleeting and his buck's antlers spike upward on his wall.
Here is what I see when I am sad: my grandmother in the photo booth. Age nineteen, just married. "Irene Hagenbuch," she writes across the back in scratching pen.
When I cry for my grandmother, I am sad because my fading girlhood hope ends here as she, with a husband who does laundry, heats her food. She mutters "Homer" seven times from her chair and yells at him for never being good enough. Never being good enough to help her live forever.
In the night, I hear them shouting from their bedroom. "You can see it," Nana says, or maybe: "You can't see it." Pop walks out in white boxer-briefs and v-neck undershirt. An angel. He goes into the bathroom and emerges seconds later. "Is everything okay?" I ask and he does not respond, just walks onward to the closet, grabs a washcloth (maybe wets it) and goes into the bedroom. I walk away and hear more shouting. "Shut the door," Nana says. Pop responds, "Now what?"
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
On the street, the night we're in
the car, he's touching me,
the kitchen wall, thick fingers.
Overlaps and folds
long streams of paper until
they resemble tissues.
For the first time, twice,
I press my hands against the mat.
He holds my face, my arms
while I, over, over,
and he tells me: take a breath.
The lowest shelf of books
at our faces. He will
--arms hold straight
my shoulders to his chest and
we are talking to each other.
the kitchen wall, thick fingers.
Overlaps and folds
long streams of paper until
they resemble tissues.
For the first time, twice,
I press my hands against the mat.
He holds my face, my arms
while I, over, over,
and he tells me: take a breath.
The lowest shelf of books
at our faces. He will
--arms hold straight
my shoulders to his chest and
we are talking to each other.
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