Talking to the Eternal Light, and: The Present, and: Anniversary

Talking to the Eternal Light

I recall a tree. A roadclose by for parking, but nomarble wall to my leftnor could there have been timein these intervening years to build one. The surroundinglawns were empty. Virginal.No muddy-mouthed crowdjostling under grass. No, thisis not the place. Don't look atme like that. It's not my memorythat's broken. Two rows of chairs,a green awning, the rabbi's hiredplatitudes, the pink lipstickshe wouldn't have been caught dead in,she was caught dead in. See?I remember. And I tell you, hereis not where I put her down. Or him.I don't care how long you've beenin business (your eye's twitching).Maybe they moved themselves,tunneling to a final destination:the bronze marker-heavyas their conjugal headache-pulled across lawns, so attachedto its underground team of gallopingboxes, it hung on like Ahabclinging to the rope of his phantom.That's how you read me, isn't it?Hanging on and desperate, the waya lost child sure he sees his parents ahead,runs, crying out to reach them beforethey-eyes now only for each other-turn that corner and disappear.

The Present

On the night of her fourth birthday,the doctor pulled a present fromhis big black bag, so sister said,cuddling behind her in the dark.1910. Halloween, when boysran howling through the yards, tippingover outhouses, her papaon the back porch shaking his fist-another girl.    Yesterday, weput that present down: third daughterof the four Lake Street girls, strandedbetween brilliance and the baby.My aunt-the shy one, the overlookedone who outlasted them all.Florrie, Helen, Eddy. Now Gert.Gittle her mama called her. Gone.The final leaf falls from the plum.The play's over. The red velvetswishes shut.    What biographydo you want? She was an actress.Her role was being quiet. Bestlong-run performance? At ninety-fiveshe went clear. Not deludedlike the youngest. Abandoned byher mind, like the eldest. Sunk ina sinkhole of bitterness likethe birthday girl. No.    She gave usan exit to match her entrance,and for her lifetime portrayalof an extra-a self-portrait.A gift of smoke in a black box.

Anniversary

It was a slow dying: a knifenot plunged in but meanderingtoward its mark as if it could notfigure out death's entrance. A strayingof the will we left behind in the roomwe had abandoned, masquerading asa photograph or an old brass lampto rub that might have saved us.

But how could anything have saved us?

Not in a sailor suit like any other boywhen you were six, but decked outin the stiff white uniform of an admiral:your mama's little man. How could Icompete with that? Even when I met you,twenty-five and old before your time.Scaredy-cat in wolf's clothing. Pepto-Bismol,flannel pajamas, and not enough galoshesand mufflers in the world to hold you in it.

(I don't want to write this)

Today-fifty years to the day-we wouldhave been one of those photographsin the style section of the newspaper.Me, stiff-lipped. You, as yet unscathedin a la-dee-da future of perfectly starched shirtsand the twenty years of handkerchiefs I pressed,just so, for your breast pocket.

Now you wear a dirt shirt. In springa boutonniere of dandelions. Always the dresser!