In Time It's impossible to imagine
the geometry of blood-- the faltering heart of your
father-- that takes you from Georgia
to Ohio. While you drive, consider the
shadow-lines and wind-rise, the rain beating on the roof
of your Monte Carlo, the windshield pockmarked
with water and the lightless highway, how the silences of your life
are beginning to claim you. Then drive past Silver Lake
to an all night diner called Venus. As you order a burger,
coffee, study the wind posturing the
pines a little closer to ground
making them like old men huddled over, clutching their
hearts. The waitress smiles at
you. You don't know why but you assume she'll go home
to her children, sneak a look at them, then
step into the arms of a trucker. She'll be careful to undress,
settling into her nakedness like ghost-mist onto
grass. It will be too late for sleep and too early for birds with
their routines, so she'll take the finger
dances, the whispers of skin and sweat, and when she wakes
up to a simple depression in her bed, she'll pass it
all off as dream. * Of course, this is not about
you, it's about me and when I reach my father's
slight apartment just beyond the Maumee River
the smell of fried potatoes in bacon grease saturates the
morning air. There is no verve, or flash
here, only a hint of rain in the
air, his morning cigarette and daily paper. The dust glint pops like fireflies around
him. It's sad: the hushed
breathes, the chest-heave and shoulder-slump, the way
his body still seems foreign to him even after the shakes
have returned it. Years ago the veins in his
hands bulged like bodies under a worn
blanket when he came in from shoveling the walk. This morning, I finally caught one those
hands mid-shake and embraced him for the
first time, neither one of us considered
the politics of our awkwardness. Carrying our conversation
from one stillness to the next, the radio pumps out tunes I
haven't heard in years. We trade sections of the
paper, say huh and you believe that? His stomach
forms a parabola of skin and cotton on the
table. Bessie Smith sings slow on the radio. His barefoot, and mine, keep time. |
