Family Portrait
Another marker plowed under by time,
this time with nary a yodel close.
It was your promise that hammered
it here to begin with,
yet its mourning was untouched
by your maternal shroud.
For the demon,
mystic promise of heaven was he,
your impenetrable fortress would wrap
around his sins with a kiss,
while I, veal with a skin of leather
would press my cheek against cold cement
for solace.
As for the tadpole,
you would offer him up lilies,
shelter him beneath leaves broad
enough only for him.
What I mean is this:
When Father paced behind a locked door,
the remainder of our unit
was a shuddering silent secret
awaiting his noose in the dark morning rain,
while highway traffic painted us
in prisms of yellow and red.
He was only a partial liar,
For two years later we crawled
inside his white-lined box and slept
for a thousand years.
In our family portrait
there is a looming shadow
of absence on my shoulder,
God's hand heavy with loving punishment.
I am fashioned from clay, kiln-stricken.
And there is you,
with your soft peach arm, your grapes
wrapped around an infant six feet tall,
who looks like him,
but for his soul that matches yours.
I stood alone,
another marker passed, unspoken,
wondering if I had ever been born.
ADE 9/10/05
© Copyright 2005
this time with nary a yodel close.
It was your promise that hammered
it here to begin with,
yet its mourning was untouched
by your maternal shroud.
For the demon,
mystic promise of heaven was he,
your impenetrable fortress would wrap
around his sins with a kiss,
while I, veal with a skin of leather
would press my cheek against cold cement
for solace.
As for the tadpole,
you would offer him up lilies,
shelter him beneath leaves broad
enough only for him.
What I mean is this:
When Father paced behind a locked door,
the remainder of our unit
was a shuddering silent secret
awaiting his noose in the dark morning rain,
while highway traffic painted us
in prisms of yellow and red.
He was only a partial liar,
For two years later we crawled
inside his white-lined box and slept
for a thousand years.
In our family portrait
there is a looming shadow
of absence on my shoulder,
God's hand heavy with loving punishment.
I am fashioned from clay, kiln-stricken.
And there is you,
with your soft peach arm, your grapes
wrapped around an infant six feet tall,
who looks like him,
but for his soul that matches yours.
I stood alone,
another marker passed, unspoken,
wondering if I had ever been born.
ADE 9/10/05
© Copyright 2005