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The surprise of a hard
boiled egg
in a shoe, a lamp
— something pagan
about it that fit our family
which had no slant on holidays,
just plastic grass and ad hoc
moves Mom made on poor
shy Dad, dangling mistletoe
over him wherever he walked,
Grandpa, on the east end
of Long Island, forever hanging
tinsel, one by one, a tree so perfect
it was sad, sad that a man's pride
came down to this, and Grandma,
soon to leave him, patting his head
saying, Good boy, Freddy. Now
it was Easter, time for a drive out there,
time to see cousin Kim and which
way she was wearing her hair,
and how long it would take her
to take off her clothes. The aunts
a year more wrinkled, still with good
legs, in cigarette fog discussing
Nixon and insurance and silicone,
Grandpa holding forth on something
boring like motor oil, his sons
nodding dutifully, as the dunes
advanced glacially on the house.
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Riding in the Buick with
my father,
I used to pick out an approaching tree
and put myself in its place, standing there
with telephone wires cutting through my neck,
a hip sawed off because I leaned too far
into the road. I would curse my fate:
why couldn't my seed have landed on
the Appalachian trail, or in a rainforest
instead of here, where the only thing
to feel is the breeze of passing cars,
my branches swaying in a hundred shoulders,
a thousand hands waving on my wrists,
and as my father drove into the distance
I bid my shrinking self goodbye.
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