|
I walked up beneath her elbow
and touched one finger
to my mother’s forearm,
her hands still on dishes
in the sink. She flinched
like she had been bitten
by a fish. Her Bible black hair
flinched. When mother looked
down at me she didn’t move
her lips or her jaw to speak.
She said, You don’t love me
either. My father continued
eating. I remember his pale
blue eyes marching around
the walls. He wiped angelfood
cake crumbs from his plate
with his brown shirt sleeve.
This is my first clear memory.
There was still cake bearing a few
yellow flames on the counter.
I ate the candles and loved them.
|
Doris Maxa, 8,
Waits For No Mail With Her Five Sisters In Their Bedroom Above A
General Store And Dance Hall In Seaforth, MN, Population 67, Circa
1945
Three brothers go off to war
and Gordon whispers to young Doris,
her thin arms crucifixing the door,
“You’re my favorite sister, Doris.”
The first two Christmases he sends oranges
—then he is shot manning the radio
in a bomber spiraling to Germany below.
Gordon wears no parachute but the pilot
heaves his limp body out a door to the sky,
and prays for a miracle to save his life.
Neil, a prisoner but alive near Berlin,
never sees his brother’s body tumbling.
He scratches at his hand near a camp fence—
mining for lice and dreaming tunnels.
Gordon must roll his eyes east to Russell,
the muscular Marine fighting in a foxhole
of sweltering volcanic ash and sulfur
on Iwo Jima. Gordon sees the pill boxes
hiding Kuribayashi and that violent job
with high wages in flames and bodies.
There is nothing to do but keep dying,
to see the war’s end and Russell surviving
only to be killed by a passenger train
while driving to make Seaforth from Maine
after being served divorce papers
and a fifth of whiskey on his brain.
So hit this earth, Gordon. Make your own grave.
Your little sister lives in this Creation
and she rolled your oranges in the winter cold.
Her hands peeled each skin from its home
in three white pieces, dried them by the stove,
and carried them away when they turned gold.
With skins and scissors, her hands make the shapes
of butterflies and of brothers and of angels.
Doris pins their wings into the empty walls:
Doris has a design for you to be beautiful.
|
