The Professors' Son
The hydra is a beast of reticence:
My father studied it in Greek Mythology,
Watched it thrive on its own goring,
Splitting, then wringing Heracles' intended pain
With its infinite coil.
My mother dissected it in her lab,
Observed it regenerate and persist.
But, they managed to come home from the University
And ignore it even though it's there,
Screaming for attention like
Grandpa's brine encrusted fingernails
And Grandma's gaudy, slipping cleavage
At my brother's wedding.
Grandpa wanted Mark to marry a scholar,
So he could watch his children flourish.
Grandma was glad he found June,
A girl whose smile could linger over
A tombstone and reverse the wilting of flowers.
My father was just glad Mark hadn't
Repeated his family's history of mistakes
While my mother was disappointed
June's genes wouldn't encode an appreciation for Nabokov.
And, there I wached the professors flounder
Over the weighty silence of their conversation,
The swallowed sentences,
And their tendency to never lie,
But never tell the truth either.
They wordleslly hacked at each other,
Terrified to see the other growing
Two heads for every one cut off,
Only to realize their skin wasn't green and scaly
In time for Mark's funeral.
After the ceremony I decided
To study Astronomy in school.
I thought I could find out
What answers that night's crescent moon could hold.
After years in the observatory I now know:
It cradles nothing.
My father studied it in Greek Mythology,
Watched it thrive on its own goring,
Splitting, then wringing Heracles' intended pain
With its infinite coil.
My mother dissected it in her lab,
Observed it regenerate and persist.
But, they managed to come home from the University
And ignore it even though it's there,
Screaming for attention like
Grandpa's brine encrusted fingernails
And Grandma's gaudy, slipping cleavage
At my brother's wedding.
Grandpa wanted Mark to marry a scholar,
So he could watch his children flourish.
Grandma was glad he found June,
A girl whose smile could linger over
A tombstone and reverse the wilting of flowers.
My father was just glad Mark hadn't
Repeated his family's history of mistakes
While my mother was disappointed
June's genes wouldn't encode an appreciation for Nabokov.
And, there I wached the professors flounder
Over the weighty silence of their conversation,
The swallowed sentences,
And their tendency to never lie,
But never tell the truth either.
They wordleslly hacked at each other,
Terrified to see the other growing
Two heads for every one cut off,
Only to realize their skin wasn't green and scaly
In time for Mark's funeral.
After the ceremony I decided
To study Astronomy in school.
I thought I could find out
What answers that night's crescent moon could hold.
After years in the observatory I now know:
It cradles nothing.