Drawing of Dog Before Stomach Wakes Her Up
At dawn, dog clicks across wood floor, claws like indeterminate tap shoes.
I can just about sleep on. These are neither Kelly’s straight-edged snaps nor the elegant slides of Astaire. Near-blindness has muffled her paws, cloaking them with hesitancy. (Sometimes, I think that she feels her way with her fur; its slightly matted, but still puffed, halo sensing oncoming walls. )
I turn over on the pretext of recalibrating her stomach’s inner clock; the truth is that I want to go back to my parents.
It is Easter weekend, but my father was the only son of a man named Robert. Hence, returning from the dead takes an awfully lot out of him. I’m not even sure how he has done it.
In fact, he has managed several times: once in the surf by my parents’ house (though the sea has always unnerved him); once in a passageway leading from their bedroom; now here, in their kitchen, just to the side of the stove.
My mother has yet to notice. She was preoccupied even when younger, even when not deaf, her inner gaze fixed upon the Iowa landscape where she and the tall corn grew, just outside a cunningly small-minded town.
And, right this minute, stacked on top of that inherent obliviousness are dirty dishes. She bends over the sink to wash each item thoroughly before placing it into the dishwasher.
Mom, I say, turning her from the sink. Mom, pointing at him.
At last, she sees; but now, upset that it’s taken so long, he turns away, his lower lip stuck out in an ashen pout.
Dad, I say, almost touching the frozen plaid of his shirt. Dad, I whisper,she’s listening now. Really. Don’t do this to her, dad. She loves you; she loves you best of all.
When I initially say those words, I picture my mother’s family–parents, siblings, forefathers–all those characters she has charted, defended, justified.
But as I repeat them–she loves you best of all. You love her too, Dad, best of all–I realize that they also apply to me; that even as I stand between my parents, negotiating, directing, I stand apart, outside that interlock of best love, a visitor to that realm.
A part of me knows that this is exactly as it should be. But still I begin to breathe heavily. Even in half sleep, I pant, as if I had been running up a steep hill, as if there were no possible level ground.
The dog clicks right up to the bed now, back and forth she clicks, back and forth.
Okay, sweetie, I say, pulling back the covers. Okay, I say, stretching down my hand.
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(The above is, I know, a rather odd piece. I’m calling it a prose poem in honor of the 10th day of National Poetry Month. I am also linking to the poetry site Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and to Imperfect Prose. Check them out! )
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