Things I Learned in 1991
How cancer of the marrow
can harp even those tight heartstrings
which are my mother’s,
with the right alignment of mentor-
ship and bribery. There’s
a metaphor there about pirates
which this woman could be likened
with, as she boarded our lives
with artistic airs and filled
certain sails and plundered my mother
from my father.
How the anesthesia of beer
can mellow the lines in the mind,
thickly pad the conscience, and
lend the ability to confess your
marital truancies to a son already
sailing on and fearful of glancing
ago. The news delivered in wet
silence is that a converted garage
has been rented and I will have
to start mowing the lawn.
How the introduction of Elton John,
Stephen King, Picasso whom
she was related to,
can insulate with marvel the boy
from the spooning, the nursing,
the weekend after weekend
of over-night packing,
our naïve dedication to her
terminal well-being, while
our burden became facing
later dark actualities,
like lesbians. like neurosis.
How a friendship can become incoherent
and belongings left in boxes on
front porches. Psychologists sometimes
apologize for their patient’s behavior.
Cancer of the marrow is tennis elbow.
One marriage is a curtain call, another
a mutinous ship. Photographs thrown
in the rain are stripped of the color
chemical and chalky yellow tears
through field-trip faces and
vacation skies.
How things can be repaired if
we replace one person’s fantasy
with our own and sail on.
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