Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

Father and Son

and asked where the ship was headed and was answered promptly, Into the desert. I asked to come on board and at once a rope ladder was handed down. I climbed eagerly; we would go through with this absurdity together since, after all, it was our experience, and we could help each other to live it through. The Bread Itself Mother, in my unwanted suffering, I turn to you who knew suffering like an odor of food and breathed it in with that familiarity. I can learn from you to become my self, eating my sorrow with my bread and gazing frankly at the world as a man, as you, a woman, taught me by your silence and acceptance of sorrow, the bread itself. Father and Son A black man is hugging me around the throat from behind with his forearm as he demands in a rapid undertone my money. I think of his embrace as nearly an affectionate one, as if from a son who has come up from behind to demand his stipend for the week in a playful imitation of a mugger. I turn carefully as I would to a son for whom I have the greatestaffection and say gently, "The money is in my breast pocket," and I make a motion toward it with my hand. He strikes my hand, as if carrying on the game of mugger,in case, as in the game, I was reaching for a gun. I say again gently to my black son, "The wallet is in my breast pocket." He does not smile. He lets me reach into my jacket to bring forth the wallet, which I do, and he snatches it from me. The game between us has become serious. I am in danger, but I react with calm. Is this my son, this tall, husky young man who is extracting the bills from the fold and now returning the wallet? I am cautious. I did not train him to be a killer or threatener, but he is serious about the 128 I Poems of the 1980s money, and he pockets it all. I have an empty wallet that I return automatically to my breast pocket. Heand I look at each other. I think I have a smile on my face, and I think he sees it and is mildly astonished , and maybe understands it or is curious to see a smile. We look at each other for another moment. There iscuriositybetween us.This is not my son but another man's, and he is acting towards me as a stranger. Weare strangers, but we are to each other in the relationship of father and son by age. He opens the door to the elevator and orders me in. Will he kill me in the elevator? I look into his face; he must realize what I am thinking. He holds open the door, waiting for me to enter, not threatening me, simplywaiting, and I enter. The door closes behind me. I look through the porthole to see him looking back at me. Is he taking a last look at the man who could be his father whom he has subjugated to his will? I think I am still smiling. I think he is smiling back as the elevator begins to climb. Above Everything I wished for death often but now that I am at its door I have changed my mind about the world. It should go on; it is beautiful, even as a dream, filled with water and seed, plants and animals, others like myself, ships and buildings and messages filling the air—a beauty, if ever I have seen one. In the next world, should I remember this one, I will praise it above everything. Thus Truly The sounds oflabor in the street, hammers at work to open pavement, ignore me. Everything is itself and so must return to itself after the event toward which it travels, as does the hammer that strikes at the pavement repeatedly but takes on nothing of its grayness or concrete 729 ...