Don't Ask Why

You sit at the table

slicing asparagus, squid, onion

into a bowl of garlic and black beans

as the knife grows heavy with age

And waits for me

to take it through one more meal,

our fragments gather in the skillet

"more" you say "faster"

"keep the flame high"

giving in to wine

and the cry of convalescence

Have I become your hand

pushing a ladle into words

your eyes on tired bills

straining against the hard light

your voice at callers

who stay too long

out of idleness or guilt?

Don't worry

soon they will return

to their own dying

While you in bathrobe and nightgown

smelling your own hair

wonder if you'll ever leave

as once I left this house

with two broken pots

and long nights following directions

still asking questions

even the old cannot answer

In a battle never understood,

now watching the past

cut and placed on the board

and oil burning the air

we must breathe together

the small tastes / of what might have been

With you I count each heart beat

like spoons and cups

missing from drawers / never far

from bed or couch,

You think all day

who ate the pumpkin cake

why your son, my brother, doesn't call

I say it doesn't matter

as if I contained it all

a family made whole / finally

on minced parsley and ginger.

Under your pillow

talismans ease the hurt

jade, preserved orange peels

"The Guiding Light"

become the unspoken prayer

the unlighted incense

for all the birthdays lost

between calendars, sun or moon

You remember only

the Year of the Rooster

when father died, as it comes again

like an unwelcome voice

in dreams

I say "only superstition"

a private lie

knowing too "Queen of Angels"

which wired you to death

once gave me birth

"then" you told the nurse

"nuns wore black habits

and gave me nightmares"

still do

but now their thin white hands

pass over your brow

as you watch me

In this kitchen

stirring too slow

burning tips and tendrils

of one life into another

We eat the remnants.

Ordering Information
for
Don't Ask Why
$5.00