ManicDDaily

Here’s a kind of sad draft poem.  I am very uncertain of the title, and the poem itself, especially the last lines.   I had a few alternatives, but they seemed susceptible to misconstruction, so went with this.

Far

We pushed from cold night into a Chinese restaurant.
The oldest couple in my group had, some time before,
lost their adult child.  It had been sudden, she
had been young.
The restaurant was over-bright, the fluorescent lights
reverberating like the din; one waitress wiped down the
table, another balanced a rounded pot of tea and a fist’s stack
of cups, the pot so full that tea brimmed to the edge of its
long neck, then was swallowed again, a
lithe shining tongue, each time she placed
a cup, which, like an egg shell,
seemed to pocket a translucency of
rice or seed pearls.
It was hard to look at the couple,
who had lost their child, every expression–their patience
with the waitresses, their concern about the crowd–was there space?
Were there chairs?–a barely translucent mask over ragged
loss, their faces like the extremity
of an icon, the bronze saint in a temple, church, whose foot has been rubbed
to a bare smooth grip, like a slip of soap, by petitioners who have
prayed to be washed clean, not of sin, but suffering.

The teapot begged to be poured in great gulps; the waitress ran it
over the cups.  I could almost not look
at the couple, as if their pain
might brim over too, burn me just by sight,
and yet I also wanted to shift my seat,
make room, drink with them that
fresh, hot tea, hold tight
those faces that
seemed so far,
in that fluorescence,
from anything that felt like succor.

Post-Script – on rereading poem today (April 7), am sorry that the line breaks are kind of messed up–especially through the center.  Also wonder whether last lines should be:

those faces that seemed
so unapproachable
in that flourescence
by anything that seemed
like succor.

I don’t know.  “Unapproachable” kind of a mouthful.  Any suggestions are welcome!