After Dinner at My Parents’ House
You sleep easily and I want you
awake. After these many years sharing
a bed, you’re on to my accidental jostle,
my now-that-you’re-up.
I have so much to tell you
but become forgetful over plates heaped
with meats, buttery vegetables.
My father keeps our goblets full of wine.
My mother fusses with the thermostat,
the butter dish, the dropped knife. You and I
smile privately at their attentions.
The ebbing conversation and silence
turn me drowsy and content; I have to be
asked twice if I would like a slice of cake. I would.
Once home I catch your glance over the lazy edge
of the newspaper, the spine of my book.
You cross your eyes; I stick out my wine-stained
tongue. In this way we love each other. Silent with
our pages, we read to insulate ourselves. Old
house. A bit drafty.
Any topics? you like to ask from the echoing folds
of the down comforter, to preempt the disruption
of my nighttime wandering mind. I smile
sweetly. Only at the twitch of your eyelids
do I remember any number of things
I’ve forgotten.
Today, out the window, the butterfly clapping
on the Rose-of-Sharon occupied me
for fifteen minutes, maybe an hour. When I say
baby I mean something to remember me by.
And this, a thought the older sister who raised you
would hate me for: You are lucky your parents
are dead, your losses tied up inside and behind you,
a parcel on the doorstep of the house
that no longer exists. We still drive by
the narrow, empty lot on each visit
to your distant hometown. The car idles slow
as a dream, and you tell me about the fire
that destroyed the green bungalow, years after
all the people you loved had moved out.
Copyright 2007 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.
All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.