ILLNESS DURING CHILDHOOD

 

When my daughter becomes sick with fever,

unable to keep even water down, I am taken back

suddenly to those terrible illnesses of childhood,

gathering like storms on the horizons of

our brows, all of us, heat blazing through temples

east and west. I remember the holy eucharist

of saltines and warm 7-Up, the pinpricks of pleurisy

through lungs gone weary with coughing,

throat scraped raw, red one day, spotted white

the next, giving up the ghost of speech;

remember, too, the little brown bottles of Robitussin,

the mountains of knotted tissue hardening,

the smell of sickness seeping into everything.

I am reminded of how we learned to walk

through sleep, as we had in waking life, pushing

hard in our delirium against heavy furniture

as though ships stubbornly clinging to shore,

while visions of saints and ancestors floated patiently

past our doors and windows, visitors which no one

would have believed had we mentioned them.

I remember how we became somehow weightless

and immovable at once, sleeping so hard

that no dream could have roused us, our limbs

growing limp and longer through the night,

reaching out for that mythical land of sunlight

and well being, until one morning we did

awake, bright eyed once more upon a shore

of cool linoleum, our bodies new and uncertain,

flat feet plodding from one room to the next,

so thirsty that we could have drank the rain clouds dry.

THE CORNER

 

Another punishment from childhood,

as familiar as going to church or setting

the dishes out for dinner, was being sent to stand

in the corner, intersection of shame

and boredom, to think about what I had

or had not done, to gaze into nothing

and plan my humble route back to forgiveness.

I learned well the corners of every home

that we passed through, their particular silences,

removed from the clamor of daily routine,

the television's canned laughter, voices rising

and falling, bellowing from room to room.

I memorized the vein-like cracks spreading

through the eggshell plaster, air bubbles

beneath the paint, the fine, stray hairs

and wisps of spiderweb long since abandoned,

knew precisely where two sheets of wood

paneling came together, imperfectly,

the slender nails that held them,

and where the tiny splinters slept hidden.

I couldn't help but wonder why I disappointed

God so often, and why I seemed so far

removed from his sacred image.

I learned to sleep standing up, unnoticed,

learned to count obsessively the ceiling tiles,

the inward folds of curtains, and wallpaper patterns,

learned to turn my mind off, and on,

and off again; I became still, became a very

fine singer in the auditorium of self.

I learned, through necessity, that my place

was just off to the side, resting

on the warm shoulder of my thoughts,

and that even the smallest hint of disobedience

could send me back to windowless solitude,

and that the wrong words spoken

could bring the whole structure down.

MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER AT 75

 

In the photo, grown cracked and distant

with age, my great-grandmother Kustaavas is seated

outdoors, her plain dress dignified, unadorned,

a large birthday cake balanced on her lap.

Her face, remarkably unlined, looks on, quizzically,

head tilted slightly to one side, a thin glimmer

of a smile shining forth through shadow.

She is centered perfectly in the frame,

as she was undoubtedly in life, yet clearly seems

unaccustomed to such a fuss being made.

In the lower left, the back tire of a Model-T

casts its lengthening shadow, a tangible bridge

stretching from one century to the next;

while further off to the right, a milk pale stands

as a reminder that this life is a life of work,

its chores never finished, and that cows, chickens,

and children pay little heed to the sabbath.

But in this moment, at least, she appears content

with it all, the moment of stillness well earned.

In the next, she will draw her breath in deeply,

blow the candles out like so many sparks

of light in the night sky, out past the camera's

shuttered lens, beyond her own imagining,

far enough to find us here, still in need of such light.

Send more, Isoäiti, send more.

ERRAND

 

My mother had already broken the eggs,

measured out the bleached white flour, before

realizing that we were out of sugar.

Which is how I found myself -- a child of seven,

hesitant to speak or approach anyone -- standing

at the rusty screened door of my grandfather's

cabin with instructions to borrow a cup.

No one had mentioned this stranger before,

released from prison to die in his own way,

away from others, like any mortally wounded animal

will do, absence being the last and only

dignity most of us can summon.

No one had warned me of the skeletal visage

which emerged, hairless and scowling,

watery blue eyes sinking deep beneath the frames

of his black horn-rimmed glasses.

I looked down, then away. I stammered out

my small request, met merely with a cold, inscrutable

glance, bearing little or no curiosity as to my

existence, the grandson who happened to share

his date of birth, letting fall only a kind of

mumble-grunt meant to convey a simple No,

and a not-so-gentle closing of the door.

Only decades later did I understand why

my mother refused to go herself,

or that the instinctual, visceral fear which I felt

was, in fact, justified. But for now, I was

content enough simply to be walking away,

unconcerned with the minor failure of my mission,

while the old man receded into the confines

of self, offering only the slow certainty

of his departure, a bitter shadow lengthening,

imperceptible, like blood seeping out

from beneath our feet.

SMOKING IN THE MOVIES

 

The legendary smokers up on the big screens

have all but vanished from our lives,

which I suppose is just as well, there being

precious little glamor in its end result.

But there was a time, not so long ago, that

we believed in that nameless hero, strong and silent,

smoking while gazing out upon the plains, far

from everywhere, and the villain, killing simply for

whimsy and fame, always one step ahead.

We believed in the femme fatale blowing smoke

rings that floated off like ill-shapen hearts,

and the hapless men falling over themselves

to offer a light to the blonde bombshell.

We followed the descent of the good girl

gone bad, the private thoughts of the lonely P.I.,

lighting up as he walked on, fading from view.

We winced at the callous boss and his wet stogie,

sighed in the obligatory afterglow of a motel room;

we fell in love with the passing stranger,

even when we knew better, the ingenue gazing

across a smoke-filled room, smoke like a veil

between illusion and the all-too-real.

But we no longer believe. We are, it seems,

wizened, streamlined, our words, like the thoughts

that lent them, reaching upward in wafer-thin

knots, weighing no more than air.

DISAPPOINTMENT AFTER A BRIEF WINTER STORM

 

We had anticipated far worse, as the prophets of winter skies had been promising -- or threatening -- for days, the word "crippling" suddenly commonplace in their weather-speak. We had expected to be stranded, shut in, with nowhere to go but further into a stack of new books, the warm engines of cats humming softly on our laps. But today we wake to crisp blue skies, walls of snow stacked neatly on either side of the street, cars already easing their way through with little resistance. Our responsibilities have found us again, our collective relief mingled with a strange sense of disappointment, not unlike what my mother must have felt when her Messiah failed to return yet again. We had longed to hunker down amongst the fresh winter silence, to claim the lengthening hours as our own, to bend our backs to help our neighbors before retreating to our newfound lives -- solitary, unhurried, underground.

FASTING

 

Then, for reasons unclear to any of us, our mother decided that forgoing food for one day, then two, would somehow bring her children closer to God. No more sugary bowls of cereal spooned and slurped over Saturday morning cartoons, no more nuclear-orange macaroni and cheese, or chicken and dumplings simmering, unhurried, on the stove. We were to subside, instead, on the spirit alone, consume the Word like bread, dutifully reading our Bible verses out loud, mouths parched, bellies rumbling in revolt. Why, we wondered in silence, had the Creator given us bodies to nourish if we were not meant to do so? Why was He in need of constant reassurance? Was not our belief enough? We knew only the immediacy of our hunger, our living room suddenly the proverbial wilderness of old, void of growth. We called out, like Elijah, like the Lord himself, waited for a sign or response. But we were no prophets, merely kids, our small hands trembling when at last we were allowed to break fast. And though the Lord felt further away than ever, we naturally said grace, said it like we meant it.