You raise the boy in privilege

You raise him in privilege 

advantages galore:

private school 

forgiveness respect 

love and more

rains down 

from heaven:

the star athlete

star artist too

talent brains 

galore, 

even more--

it's almost unfair 

how much mana

smiles down on this 

one small life. 

And then a wind comes 

down and flips 

this life into a field 

and it all gives way 

like a fence blown 

down in the storm. 

How odd to hear him

rap on your window 

when the moon is low 

and see that face white  

and blank as snow, 

to see him bagging cans 

from the bins in the park

to see him thin as a reed

with eyes that spark  

like campfires in the dark;

that sun drenched boy   

of soccer fame sagging 

like some

abandoned 

house 

and the riddle 

of why 

and how 

will not let 

his father sleep 

one full night.

A Quiet Town A Father's Day Poem

Once I wrote a book of poems
about my father

but they do not reveal the man
with a raccoon's blue eyes

who brewed beer in the basement,
who drove off every Friday

and returned Sunday nights with
a buck tied to the roof of our Rambler.

The poems just sit up all night 

thinking how my family feels like

a quiet town with an old mystery
that no one talks about
but me.

Tides A Father's Day Poem

One long ago summer after an all-day drive from Indiana in our station wagon, we arrive at grandma's beach house on the Atlantic.

A dozen laughing men and women put down their highballs and cigarettes to hug us.

They are my father's mother, sisters and their husbands and they engulf my parents as shore birds merge into formations.

We four kids sit on the porch sipping cherry cokes, not speaking, our bodies busy sponging it all up:

this vast watery world,
the merry traffic jam of strangers
who seem to care for my father,
and the sudden levity in his body.

It feels strange in a good way
to see enjoyment on him.
He wears it well.

I like the tiny stars that appear in his eyes.
How his hard mouth breaks into jocularity
at things they say to him.

The ocean thrashes before us on the porch,
a sound like Indiana rain storms.

Suddenly in the moonlight the tide spits out waves
of giant horseshoe crabs that grope forward on the sand.

Black helmuts with 7 tiny hands and feet
barely moving but drawing closer.

The sight so beautiful and foreign
like my father's happiness emerging
from his own deep hidden tides.

Slump

Even in the early pictures, my brother 

sitting in his stroller, you can tell
our father isn't satisfied.

Already there's an inward drooping 

in the baby’s eyes 

that mirrors the slump in our father’s face 

looking past the child toward something 

awful that left its mark on him.  

There's nothing wrong with this boy 

but his father’s snub ages him and

poor health stalks like a lion in the weeds.

And so my brother clings to our mother's love, 

and to mine, sometimes thin 

as a blade of grass, 

but not loving him is too hard 

a pill for us to swallow. 

Would I be a better woman?

People wake from their trances when

my father passes by

in uniform as if on parade

while I skip behind trying not to step 

on his very shiny shoes 

that blast up the street 

like torpedoes.

Then comes that moment--
I can touch its contours, 

I can call it forth any time--

when I reach for the soldier's hand--

when I feel mine fit snug as a shrimp 
inside its shell--

that’s how I want it to be. 

I want him to claim me as I claim him.

I wonder now, would I be a better woman 

had he not yanked his hand free, 

had he not said, I don't have time to be silly,

had he not meant, not now, not ever?

A dilemma

My mother must know it will kill him 

(it was clear he was dying anyway)

when she pushes my father into the plane

to California, 3000 miles from home

and rings my door bell.

He does not want to be standing on 

the doorstep of his least favorite 

child, so hunched and plucked, 

his dry, stiff wings closed behind him,

but he is still breathing and my heart 

.

The leap

I am not in the photo with the kids 

on that colossal rock we call a dinosaur egg,

in that flat grassy infinity behind our house. 

Yet the photo is still in me 

even though not much happens on that egg 

while we wait for my father

to come back from Korea. 

Only endless summer picnics 

of red Kool-aid and boloney sandwiches. 

The State Fair blows to kingdom come out there 

and my idea of a great time is born.

My brother calls every man he sees daddy

and then one day a stranger stands in our door.

Slips off the brown Army garrison cap, scans 

four kids sitting on the sofa for inspection.

I hope you've been behaving yourselves, 

that's all the stranger says before he holds 

out his arms to his wife, rests uncertain lips 

on her more uncertain ones. 

My mother is the only person in the room

who recognizes his face.

But not even she knows yet 
the leap from the window has begun.

The first time

He can barely get out of the car. 

He has to cup the rim of the door with both hands 

and pull himself to his feet, taking sucking breaths,

mewling, all bones bundled in fleece, an old ram, unsure, 

stumbling and sinking. 

He hates this stage of life, its shame, its servility, so 

I do not offer my arm.

We have not spoken in years and now he is not himself, 

and when I open the restaurant door, 

he stops at the first chair, collapses into it

as if just pulled from a plane wreck.

The man with no liver orders beer. 

I say nothing.

He used to make his own in the basement. 

One New Year's my mother threw bottles, some landed

on his head, because he was too drunk to go to the party. 

Under layers of wool, his head seems small, 

it dangles over the menu, membranes shrunken

like a raisin, juiceless and fluted. Then something 

I say charms him and his body quales with delight 

and then he winks, You're ok, kid. 

It is the first time he ever lets on that he likes me.

Unless that's not what he meant, in which case 

he has never let on. 

What old men do

Now my husband reminds me 

of my father. It may be all men 

resemble my father 

when their vital organs wane. 

It may be they all sit for hours

in oversized chairs to read the paper, 

and scold about the wrong turn 
the world has taken

since they were young and quick. 

It may be they all sink 
into long naps

while watching TV mobsters 

and large game 
chow each other down. 

It may be they all 

make grocery shopping 

the high spot of their days, 

and yet each morning, shave, 
fuss with their hair, pat on racy cologne 

and dress to kill.

Redemption

My father comes from a breed unkind to sons
so who can blame my brother for saying
Good riddens when I tell him the old man’s dead.
And when I trick him into a graveyard tour
and pull alongside the flat rock under which
the old man sleeps face up and barefoot in his uniform,
who can blame my brother for saying 
I’m not interested.
And when I stand at the grave, who can blame my brother
for staying in the car and when in a loud voice 
I read the words on the plaque about two wars and 
a purple heart, who can blame my brother for standing
at my side and saying, Go sit in the car, please.
And when I lift my face to the clear sky, to redemption,  
I hear a pelting, a cloudburst.
And when I turn my eyes to that flat rock, 
my brother is urinating on it 

and who can blame him?

Out of the corner of my eye

I still remember it with wonder, the sight of him naked, 

the sight of him impressive and appalling-- 
I had never laid eyes on a bare-skinned man
(but had imagined how men might look, 
had turned over images in my head,
ruminated about the angles beyond 
the pelvis), and now here lies such a beast in person. 
In the hallway, in the early light and hush of our house, 
(I am the only one up), when out of the corner of my eye, 
I see my parents' bedroom door ajar
and there in all his raw vitality lays my father, his bulk 
and scale so marvelous: 
a buttocks in full view, a heft of thigh 
roofed in tangled hair--and, terrifyingly--
that ripened kiwi dangling.  
My parents lay side to side, his face in fields 
of her hair, his arm a bridge from his 
breathtaking flesh to hers, 
his thigh a mountain along her dunes .
My eyes wander without shame over their bodies 
as if they were dead.

.

.

Does he know?

In the last weeks, I wonder, does my father knows he's dying,
I wonder, does he care.
I try to decipher his mood as he sits
with a wool blanket on his lap
and later in the naval hospital where his body
becomes so light the nurse carries him to bed.
I seek a name for his mood so I can dwell
on its meaning, approach it appropriately.
But as a dying man he is not much different
from the man who was not dying.
I read that EEGs of alcoholics show flattened brain
waves so I picture my father’s mind as an uneven
table top and think of what his sister says,
Francis is not a great husband, not a great father,
but he is a wonderful brother.
He is not one but three people, maybe more.
My father is funny that way.
We are all funny that way.
After his last breath, we stare down at him,
not knowing it was the last, waiting for one more
flutter, a lurch or gurgle and when none comes,
I joke to my mother, Now you can tell me he wasn’t my father.
It is mean to say it right there where my father’s skin
still gives out a bit of heat, and his mouth hangs open wide,
as if he is stunned by my hardness.

Panic

My mother always says the man’s a fool so it comes 

as a surprise, how surely my father drives through 

the maze of streets in New York City. He makes no 

wrong turns, asks for no directions, 

consults no maps. From the back of our Rambler, 

four children thrust heads into the beeping horns, 

into the streams of cars and buses that waver

and wobble forward like penned cattle, 

and there’s my father driving calmly right through 

all that mayhem as if he enjoys it. He even points 

things out to us. 

See, that's the Stock exchange. 

Over there, that mansion, Andrew Carnegie lived there. 

Just like that, all the way to Long Long Island 

without a single hitch. 

It is late afternoon when we arrive at his mother’s

beach house. After miles of dried Indiana clay, 

the glittery Atlantic ocean stuns, an amazing sight, 

a planet in itself, etched in gold. But what I see next 

stops me in my tracks: rising from the whirling water, 

armies of black-shelled creatures as big as geese

with feathery claws and snapping tails, and eyes with 

pouches like purses, are crawling over sand, 

whiskers twitching, toward us. 

We scramble up the porch squealing, beating 

on the door, we are banging, we are yelling, 

we are crying, but my father’s only swaying, he is

pouring, and his mother’s saying Francis, 

you've had enough, and the ice is tossing in the shaker, 

the vodka’s splashing and I am understanding 

my father’s not a fool, he’s a drunk.

To the Siblings I Never Met

In case you ever wonder 

about the man who flicked you off

like a cigarette, about what you missed, 

I want to tell you he lived by strict rules: 

No touching, no conversation. A language

of snarls, mutterings, angry stares.

We constantly offended him. 

Oh, an occasional wisecrack or two, 

so amusing that raucous whooping sprung 

loose from my knots-- 

laughter so unrestrained he thought I was screaming--

and there was his strawberry shortcake in summer--

a delicious cloud of whipped cream on slopes

of pound cake mushy with fruit.

And there was that wink--a sudden impish entrapment
to call a truce, to pardon him with Freudian notions--

he too grew up forsaken--or simpler ones,
like, men are made for war.

But under his crushing disregard, 
our brothers malfunctioned mightily.

He was their chief impeder and they his 

and though we're old now and he long dead, 

his finger points with taut disdain at 

each of us who are still squeamish, 

still tensed--still hoping, insanely, he’ll change.

That’s what we are heir to. 
It’s all that accrued to the children 

he did not leave behind.

My Living Room, Castro Valley

It is my favorite room, 

the biggest living room
I've ever had.

I walk it end to end, 

let my hand slide down the stone hearth, finger

the artful molding, 
pose before the grand windows. 

My father pushes a chair to the windows. 

For a whole day he eyes the hills 
yellow as lions
and the Bay polished as steel, 

and the etched skyline
of San Francisco, 

and left and right the bridges--

silver threads curling across the water--

and through the cloak of fog
a sword of light 
pierces the heart of Treasure Island.

He is dying and he knows it.

But he wants to buy my house.

The Soldier

My father wasn’t anyone’s father 

or husband or friend.

He was a soldier.

My father waited rifle cocked
for enemies to storm the hill

or step out of  our bedrooms.

Once when I came to visit,

he cooked me dinner.

Eggplant parmesan 

with tomatoes

from his garden.

Food must be fresh.
He said this from a mist
of beer and smoke.

And then he winked 

as if we shared 

a secret knowledge.

But of course 

I barely knew him.

Scents

When he opens his mouth, I inhale the hops

of Papst Blue Ribbon, the toast of Lucky Strikes,

Gillette's sandalwood floats from him, so too the

copper scent of deer blood and the opossum he slams 

against our house and boils unshorn. 

(He could have shot it--he keeps

rifles in the house.)

He’s not a family man, my grandmother warns

but my mother runs from her broken down country,

its wiped-out illusions, to New York and then regrets it 

immediately and every morning to that morning when my

father’s liver gives out and even after that, right up to when 

my mother takes her own last, she regrets it.

He tells her he’s sorry. He says so just before he points

to eagles circling above his bed. 

He says, I know when I'm right and I know 

when I'm wrong and I was wrong.   

That’s not good enough for my mother but it’s good 

enough for me.

Time Flies

He tied big birds and bucks 

to the roof of our station wagon.

Left catfish gasping in the kitchen sink

And fired up the grill.

Jammed our garage with firearms, golf clubs

fishing poles, bowling balls.

Grew sunflowers taller than the house.

Bred a hunting dog in the back.

Built a brewery in the basement.

Soldiered in Europe and Korea

Kept his medals polished in a drawer

And nine to fived every day.

Don't waste time, daddy warned

as I swung in my swing, wasting time.

It's all gonna be over before you know it.

Before you know it doesn't begin to describe

The way time took flight 

like a falcon’s hunting dive,

As I swung in that swing, smiling

Daddy’s just trying to scare me.  

Copyright (c) 2012 Ellen McCarthy. All rights reserved.