Poetry
Love Worn
In a tavern on the Southside of Chicago
a man sits with his wife. From their corner booth
each stares at strangers just beyond the other's shoulder,
nodding to the songs of their youth. Tonight they will not fight.
Thirty years of marriage sits between them
like a bomb. The woman shifts
then rubs her right wrist as the man recalls the day
when they sat on the porch of her parents' home.
Even then he could feel the absence of something
desired or planned. There was the smell
of a freshly tarred driveway, the slow heat,
him offering his future to folks he did not know.
And there was the blooming magnolia tree in the distance--
its oversized petals like those on the woman's dress,
making her belly even larger, her hands
disappearing into the folds.
When the last neighbor or friend leaves their booth
he stares at her hands, which are now closer to his,
remembers that there had always been some joy. Leaning
closer, he believes he can see their daughter in her eyes.
Grief
That year after it happened
we opened the summer house
and invited your brother and his wife
the second one, to join us.
Our laughter drifted into late-night air
joining the clank of glasses and ocean water hush.
Sunny, your brother’s wife,
asked you to dance with her to a cd she’d brought
(not knowing that you dislike anything older than 80’s rock)
and your hand stayed in one spot on her waist
as your brother and I drank mojitos and played Scrabble.
It was a month of long afternoons,
crossword puzzles and barbeque, quick sex
before we rose for breakfast usually
made by Sunny, your sister-in-law
(who didn’t know you were allergic to eggs)
and your long after-lunch naps on the deck always
with a thick book resting on your undulating stomach,
reminding Sunny, the wife of your only brother, of the waves,
how they come in with such force, then fizzle
into tiny bubbles before her happy toes.
I watched her, Sunny, watching you one evening
while your brother, her husband, whistled along with the radio
in the kitchen, his apron slightly stained,
his wife just twenty feet away,
as he prepared the salad that would complement
the fish he’d grilled an hour before
you laid on the hammock swinging
at first, then still under the moon
and the dreaded thoughts
I could not refuse.
I went to the room that would have been our son’s
and sat at the edge of the bed while memories of
last year, this time exactly, collided.
There you stood at the doorway,
which was now the shoreline of my private sadness.
Behind you the dim hall light and
Sunny, my sister-in-law, singing off key.
Sleeping Quarters (for Sojourner Truth)
Here our misery unfolds hovers
the way air weighs one down to sleep.
We lay in quiet gratitude
on thin wood and straw pallets
our breathing a testimony
to another day’s survival.
Flanked by Bomfree and Mau Mau
I hold a patient pose
as night sounds remind me
of life’s abundance. I search
the darkened room
which is like the sky
spotted by the moon’s mercy. Before
I close my eyes
I follow God’s direction
a silver streak breaking
through the panes
pointing.
Mau Mau Quilting (for Sojourner Truth)
I remember Mau Mau quilting
when the day gave way
to whispers and fatigue
when the warmth of bodies in our small
home was just enough.
I followed her hands
read the histories in each weft she wrote
as if crafting a universal prayer.
One night I sat at the hem
the scroll cloth telling
a text no child could comprehend.
In from the fields
Bomfree treaded across
like an angry soldier
the quilt his battlefield
of shame and loss. I still recall
the dirt of his heel staining
one corner of my old calico dress.
Robert’s Answer (for Sojourner Truth)
I took a beating for Bell
not cause I loved her
or wanted to prove all that I whispered
in her ear each stolen night.
Sometimes the silence in her eyes
swallowed me like pride denied.
But I learned to tread up
return to stale Southern air
chance the distance from farm to farm
bear my sins in her ever welcome arms.
I went down that day
beneath white fists
to answer my Daddy years before
as he waited for death:
Will you be a man or a slave?