The Giant Upstairs
Downstairs, terra cotta tiles cold under bare feet, small and chilled in the night, walls blue and deep. My mother and I, standing in the hallway below the stairs, and my father above, two stories tall and voice like a brawl. Fury like the night, howl and moan. And I am full of love, he said. There on the bed in the day, bone thin and denying the moon. I said, we’ll see, but the demand was a map, of the world and all those stars. Outside, shining down on the lake, and my mother slept in my bed, while I lived, I lived, I lived, and while she remembered I forgot or never knew. What is a life when you hold it in your hand, what is a hand you hold when the life slips? The ashes were not black the way she wrote them. They were grey like feathers, dust and stone. Gravel, and I didn’t want to hold them. Didn’t want to speak my distraction. Distraction? What is a pain when it’s edges are so soft? I am full of love, but he roared from above, and I the cowerer, the map-less bird. Please, will you show me the way, he asked, will you take me by the hand? My paths wander, and my mind is shuttered. A tower of mortar and brick. Steady, it is, with an eternal hum like the sea inside a shell. I hold you at a distance, arms stretched, and I can’t answer these questions, because there is no choice in these meanderings. A path, that is the request. A preview, and a happy ending. I am full of love, he said, and I drew my hand away. Built the castle and the tower, too. Stared down at the terra cotta tiles and the mid-night chill, sky-tall and howling at the moon.
(from 6/2/09)
