Eleanor and Elsa
Eleanor was the sensible sister,
Elsa's word, contemptuously, with silent rage, that someone
could be so down-to-earth, so unflappable,
so jolly even, and so blind to the invisible,
the living air around, and be the sensible one.
My mother was a true tragedienne,
driven by fierce winds, inside and out,
fighting for her truth at every turn;
so when Eleanor's brain went, Elsa in heaven
sighed in triumph. When Eleanor
forgot whom she was talking to
and what about and asked to be forgiven,
Elsa was touched and willing to forgive.
And when she said things like “I've lost my identity,”
and “I don't see why I should go on living,”
as if to say “I've lost my dentures,”
whatever passed for Elsa then
stepped from a low cloud,
embraced her foolish sister
and took her by the hand back home again.
Jesus' Pour
Sunday morning while peeing
I got to thinking about our trip to Europe
on the Holland-America ocean liner
SS Maasdam, February 1956:
my intelligent father,
my beautiful mother,
my supercilious sister
and me. We dress for dinner.
I wash my hands and face
and Brylcreem my hair.
My mother and ridiculously my sister
lipsticked in long dresses.
The legs of all the tables
have been bolted to the floor.
* * *
My father pulls and pushes
my mother into her seat.
Jesus, our starched white steward,
announces his coming
with a jingle-jangle of ice cubes
and briskly fills our glasses.
Somehow my glass
was a Pepsi.
* * *
Saturday night, a whiff of ozone.
Zeus in a fury zaps his electrics
igniting the heaven, hurling block-busters,
flights of gannets flee him in terror.
Poseidon surfaces, pitchfork in hand
summoning chaos, sky-high tsunamis
rise to his mastery, monsters a-roar.
And Boreas blowing to burst his cheeks
flays our poor Maasdam, flings her about,
like Mahetibel's favourite maimed mouse.
* * *
Chandeliers sway
over a suddenly silent room;
place-settings play
musical chairs;
stem vases topple,
Jesus approaches
(as lights flicker, plates crash,
grapefruits role uphill)
and asks me in all solemnity
would I rather have
a short glass of water
or a l--o--n--g glass of water?
Not pausing for an answer
he raises the pitcher straight-arm
high and from a fixed zenith all his own
beams a perfect braided silver-shining ray
into my crazily slaloming glass
not a drop awry. Unbelievable.
* * *
My ashen father, my gasping mother,
my whimpering sister and I
cling to our table understanding only
that God isn't real,
that earth is where everyone dies
in the sink of gravity,
and that nothing on earth
or elsewhere could save us now.
My mother explained it
like this one day
when I asked her the obvious question:
“When I was a girl
in the early days
of automobiles
like the Ford Model T
you needed a crank
to get the motor going.
It fit in a slot
just under the grille
and you yanked it and cranked it
with all your might
till you finally heard
the churlish coughs
puffs and harrumphs
of the damn motor returning to life.
Then they came out
with the Ford Model A
which started right up
when you pushed a button:
a great innovation,
the self-starting car.
Everybody loved it,
they sold like hotcakes.
But believe it or not
these modern self-starters
came fully equipped
with what? guess what?
A crank! And why?
Why that grim, obsolete,
unlamentented tool
in this spanking new
self-starting Ford Model A?
Just in case,
though extremely unlikely,
that magic button
stopped working one day.
Prudently, scrupulously
just, in, case.
And that,” she declared
with a kiss on my cheek,
“is why men have nipples.
Just in case.”
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