[brigits_flame] Fly on the Walls of Yore
Jul. 7th, 2012 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1stmateFly on the Walls of Yore
I have often wondered, these long years
later, what happened between the two of you.
I was too young to understand how
delicate the threads of family
can sometimes be. Here one day,
gone the next: a man I could have called Father
in another life.
I imagine being in the room, still
too young to get out of the crib,
on that fateful December evening.
I hear you, Father, DaDa. I hear
your voice, louder than my newborn ears
can really manage. I hear MaMa crying.
I think you may have hit her. I can't decide
if she left with me then or if you left that night,
protecting us from you in the only way
you knew.
No: it's morning, early morning. Early enough that you
still would call it night, though Mother rises
in two short hours. You don't pass the living room,
trying not to wake me, but she hears you and comes
from the bedroom. You collapse face-first on the couch.
Mother rouses you, tries to lead you to bed,
but you blink up at her blearily. "Diane?"
She knows only one Diane, your secretary
and whore.
But: I'm stretched on my stomach, inhabiting
Blanky in the dining room. Mom is folding
our clean towels. Your head is on the table
in the crease of an elbow, spare hand toying with my pacifier.
I don't see who speaks first, but the air
is a jumble of broken promises and regret. Granny and Pop
will take us in; you will move out and head west
as soon as we are no longer your burden.
Mom sighs in the afternoon sun and tells you
tomorrow.
Or: the morning is cold, and we have been up all night
waiting in vain for your shift to end, for you to
come home.
I often wonder, these long years later,
where I would be right now if none of those had happened.
I can't see how I might be different, but I know
I would not be here, in this coffee shop, waiting
for you to stitch those threads back together again.
I have often wondered, these long years
later, what happened between the two of you.
I was too young to understand how
delicate the threads of family
can sometimes be. Here one day,
gone the next: a man I could have called Father
in another life.
I imagine being in the room, still
too young to get out of the crib,
on that fateful December evening.
I hear you, Father, DaDa. I hear
your voice, louder than my newborn ears
can really manage. I hear MaMa crying.
I think you may have hit her. I can't decide
if she left with me then or if you left that night,
protecting us from you in the only way
you knew.
No: it's morning, early morning. Early enough that you
still would call it night, though Mother rises
in two short hours. You don't pass the living room,
trying not to wake me, but she hears you and comes
from the bedroom. You collapse face-first on the couch.
Mother rouses you, tries to lead you to bed,
but you blink up at her blearily. "Diane?"
She knows only one Diane, your secretary
and whore.
But: I'm stretched on my stomach, inhabiting
Blanky in the dining room. Mom is folding
our clean towels. Your head is on the table
in the crease of an elbow, spare hand toying with my pacifier.
I don't see who speaks first, but the air
is a jumble of broken promises and regret. Granny and Pop
will take us in; you will move out and head west
as soon as we are no longer your burden.
Mom sighs in the afternoon sun and tells you
tomorrow.
Or: the morning is cold, and we have been up all night
waiting in vain for your shift to end, for you to
come home.
I often wonder, these long years later,
where I would be right now if none of those had happened.
I can't see how I might be different, but I know
I would not be here, in this coffee shop, waiting
for you to stitch those threads back together again.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 12:29 am (UTC)There is so much about the tone, the imagery, and the movement in this piece that is so wonderful, that I'm actually glad that I 'put it down' for a few days and came back to it. I realize now that for all its lovely sadness, there are a few elements that are unclear for me. It's a credit to you that I was so taken with it my first time through that I missed the fact that I'm fuzzy on a few things! :)
In the second stanza, you wrote:
I imagine being in the room, still
too young to get out of the crib,
on that fateful December evening.
I read through the rest of the poem and I can't tell if the speaker is recollecting being in the room at that time or simply imagining it.
The 'No' that begins the third stanza seems to indicate that the speaker is correcting his own memory. But then I'm confused again because you repeat this same one word followed by a colon structural beginning for the next two stanzas. This seems like it could indicate that each of these is yet another correction, but the choice of 'but' seems odd to indicate this.
I love the details you've included. I love the tone, the rhythms, the structure, the imagery, the relationships between these people. I just am struggling to understand how you intend them to go together, what their presence means to the poem.
If they are different possible memories, then what changes in the choosing of one over another? Or is the point simply that memory is an unreliable witness? And if that is the point, what is the speaker left with as a result? What are the pieces that he has that cannot be stitched together?
This is an absolutely gorgeous work-in-progress that absolutely deserves a rewrite. There is so much love and beauty in this. It just needs a bit of clarification so that you know you are guiding the reader along the path you intend for him/her/zie to follow.
Always a pleasure. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 10:09 pm (UTC)