Glass Nobodies
How I drowned
in my mother’s tears
alone and un-rocked
is the part of the story I leave out–
how we shivered and swayed
in the shadow of the storm
how hurricanes
had nothing on my father!
Shiver and sway shiver and sway
That’s what I did as a child
that and stare through glass
Did I mention
we lived in a house of glass?
glass windows glass ceilings glass walls
How they called it a greenhouse
How I called it a fish-tank–
no air no filter
seaweed for supper!
and green stuff growing all around!
People would have paid good money
back then
just to stare
through our glass walls
Our Mother
swishing back and forth
in her Miami
salmon Beach chiffon
Did I mention
how re-lent-less-ly
sun and rain beat
on the windowpanes
how our father beat
daily on our dear mother–
our mother
Our Lady of the Aquarium
our mother
gasping for air
like a wail out of water
How we
lay weeping in each other’s blood
weeping
in each other’s blood
with Jesus
wading through our tears
with Mary
floating
just above us
How Papa crossed himself
and all four corners of the room–
eye-cons in every corner
Imagine my surprise
when
at the age of three
I looked into blood-mirrors
and found my own reflection
And where was Mama?
Maaaa--maaaaa!
who died alone at sea
Maaaa--maaaaa!
who dove
through a sea of glass
Mama
who could see right through us
‘And, stay away from the mirrors” she’d warn
Ha! Good luck !
That’s always a caution
when a hurricane’s coming at you
one hundred miles per hour
‘’And stay away from Papa’’
Shiver and sway shiver and sway
Yes stay away from my father
and other unanticipated flying objects
Of Papa Who Sang in the Opera
i
The deaf cannot hear their babies cry
except inside
where locked forever
(clams in their half-shells)
they have rocked themselves to sleep
on a bed of dry tears
Our father died like that-–
alone in his belly
tossing in dream like some large deformed seal
His was a bitter cry
at the bottom of an empty kettle
of Death Blacker than Russian tea
blood brewed in silence on his lips
and hardened into pearls
His was an endless wail an ocean baritone
which they scraped off the roof of his mouth
and unplugged with a rub-a-dub-dub
Cancer they said while Time
clung to him like a raft
and we removed each year another dying oyster
Cancer they said while Pride
left him stranded on that scab
of mutinous betrayal
Our father died alone in his mouth
immune to the twentieth century
I am my own doctor! I am my own cure!
Give us this day our daily…
pain louder than darkness
truth stronger than liniment--
our father. A true Russian--
who came to America to survive the Revolution
and lost himself instead in contradiction
His was the only voice
His the only song
Pieta Pieta…
He is singing in Our grave
He should have been a conductor
ii ,
We buried him in deep November
brown hat brown suit brown shoes
Colour
of sorrow of sepia of sienna
of a thousand burnt photographs
fading into their horizons
Colour
of the shit linoleum
I scrubbed with a toothbrush
the day I was forced
to dig my own grave
Punishment
for the crimes I committed
like living
A hole much smaller
than the ones in Papa’s head
than the ones in our stories
than the hole in my heart
We buried him above ground
one year at a time
lowering him slowly
into forgiveness–
tulips blossoming
into Soviet red wounds
mouth opening
into Stalin’s tomb
Arias by Tchaikovsky
in operatic fury threatening
to swallow us whole
Lowering him slowly
into forgiveness–
Our father His Holiness
who dreamt of Byzantium-
clouds fluttering like butterflies
between claps of thunder
A pinch of late Autumn blown by the wind
God threw in a handful of stars
The sunflowers looked on
bowing their heads
Sometimes deep in sorrow
I lie in his grave
Papa wanders
barefoot there
like Jesus Christ in Summer
The Devil too
in his black fedora
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