Descendants
Rush Rankin

 

My mother, delicate as air, allowed
my father to idealize and insult her, each,
as it was in their time, the one great
love of the other's life, but confused,
as though, touching, they couldn't tell
whether they'd undressed or not, as though,
dressing, they couldn't find their shoes.

§     §     §

At a college dance, he had tapped her
date's shoulder and said, That's the lady
          I'll marry. Like a heroine,
she smiled to herself in the dark.

§     §     §

There was a depression, a war, a mortgage,
and the father who had spoiled him,
and then asked too much, and died,
          and his mother, who died.
There was the country doctor
he didn't become. There was dumb
and brutal work and obscene jokes
and children and all those other things
          that other men survive.

§     §     §

He distracted himself by eating
         and grew huge, as though
he had become only the simple fact
of weight, and left his sword,
a souvenir, outside his wife's room
on the floor, as a sign of what
I don't know, as though the exact spot
existed for an unmistakable
           aberration.

§     §     §

As his body expanded, his life shrank
to the shape of his silhouette.
           Damp clothes would stick
to flesh, would expose, like an embrace,
           the shape of his silhouette.
Once, when it was raining, he pretended
it wasn't raining, and as the rain
dripped from his nose he continued
working. He'd show his wet son
what every man should know.

--- From The Failure of Grief
©2000, Nettle Media