Have not resulted - as the boy's father assumed
Before becoming a father - in tough-love scoldings,
Tears, and forced apologies. Instead, they occur
Unexpected, in quiet moments, and they pass
Before he can think of saying or doing the
Fatherly thing.
Driving, he listens to the boy in the back seat
List the people coming to Easter Lunch, guessing
Almost everyone right: Papa and Grandma,
Annie and Mike, Uncle P and Tee-Tee. He is
Wrong only about Tee-Tee, a once-certain
Future aunt.
"Well," the father starts, "Uncle P and Tee-Tee
Aren't together anymore." The boy's blond scalp
Tilts in the rear-view mirror. At the next stop sign,
The father turns to face the boy. Both pairs of eyes
Land on the squiggly dinosaurs dancing
On the boy's undersized necktie.
"Do you get it?"
The boy answers with innocent certainty. "Yeah."
He has learned to answer this way to questions he
Cannot fully understand. Do you love your baby
Sister? Do you love Jesus? Does Jesus love you?
He has also learned to walk, to swim, to not take toys
from his infant sister's hands, as all humans do -
Through repetition.
Hours later, the father holds an empty glass
By the stem and calculates how many years
Will pass before he learns the perfect words.
The boy opens and closes, opens and closes
The plastic egg he discovered in the yard,
As if willing the three jelly beans inside
To change color. He looks up, eyes searching the air
As they did the first day of his life, and he asks,
Where's Tee-Tee?
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This has been sitting unfinished in the blog database for several days now. It's not doing what I want. Open to any suggestions.
ReplyDeleteso the first stanza isnt really helping anything, as far as i can tell.
ReplyDeletei would avoid using the word scalp unless you are writing about colonialism, i think.
"Hours later, the father holds an empty glass
By the stem and calculates how many years
Will pass before he learns the perfect words." is awesome. and seemingly the emotional crux of the poem, yes? so in a rewrite, i would focus on this a bit more.
with lists, i think unless the list is dynamically adding something more to the equation, you may want to cut back examples of something to 1 or 2 - "He has also learned to walk, to swim, to not take toys/ from his infant sister's hands, as all humans do" doesn't really continue to add to the subject.
there are a few suggestions. can't wait to see draft two.
i'm 100% agreed with tim on the "Hours later, the father holds an empty glass" part. it's heartbreaking. my only suggestion would be to push the father's perspective, or focus on his internal thoughts, more in this poem? as quasi-helpful that may or may not be.
ReplyDeletei also agree you could cut the first stanza, even though its play with the title. i think the third stanza needs to be rewritten--like i think you can write it better while still pushing the plot in this poem. maybe cut the father's part of the dialog ("...aren't together any more.") and simply have the narrator of this poem say it (i.e "The father tells his son that Tee-Hee will not be coming.")
i like this a lot. it reminded me of one of the poems you wrote in 206--BACK WHEN YOU WERE MY ARCH NEMESIS--about the boy with crooked glasses.
nina - i've agreed with you, and you've agreed with me, way too much in the last day or so. time to pick some poem fights.
ReplyDeletei agree tim.
ReplyDelete