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Just
So
If
we could live it all over again,
Jack
would be a script supervisor--like "Miss-
Know-It-All"
in Truffaut's Day
for Night,
the
alert one who makes out that the actress
in
the swimming suit is showing, the quick one
who
guesses where to find a photogenic cat
that
will lap the milk.
Living it all
over,
Jack
would focus on continuity,
on
taking care that all the details
were
as they were--an uncapped soda bottle
just
so full, bedcovers thrown back just so,
a
shadow falling just so short, the minute hand
of
a clock just so many seconds shy of the hour.
And
he'd have shots he'd want retaken
till
perfect--like the one in the kitchen,
the
two plates in the dish rack, a third
soaking
under the suds, and on the countertop
the
replacement for glass the boy, mid-gesture,
will
drop, the ice cubes melted just so,
everything,
yes, everything
lovingly seen
to
so
we can live that moment all over again,
the
boy's shirt-tail hanging out in back,
the
damp spot on his father's light blue apron
just
so dark.
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Walking
on Water
Early
March--
perhaps
the last morning
the
lake will support you
and
you spot a scrap of newsprint
steeping
in a puddle
atop
the ice.
You squat
in
hopes of learning
something
new
and find
a
recipe for devil's food,
the
ingredients precise
and
complete, the steps
written
as if starting from scratch
will
renew the world.
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Sunday
Morning
He's
one of those people
who'll
tell you the truth
each
time he figures
it
out.
He'll slouch
unbuckled
in
your passenger seat explaining
that
The
New York Times has
come
to
bore him as much as mowing,
as
much as waking at two A.M.
to
crunch another quarter off
a
sleeping pill, as much as tugging
on
socks, as much as the certainty
he'll
never develop an interest in Revelations
because
there's no way in hell
he'll
ever read it.
"'It'?
'It'?" he'll repeat.
"Think
of it.
It
is a
revelation
--so
pliant and handy."
One
rule
he'll
never break is picking up the ball
after
missing (or sinking) his third putt
and
then heading toward the cart--
usually
sighing "Okay"
to
No One In Particular,
if
sighing
is a word for
relenting
as
if taking charge.
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damnation
The
time comes
and
out of necessity and love
or
love and necessity
you
place your father in a home
and
take your mother in.
Most
days she seems herself--
the
well thumbed Camus
open
on the arm of her chair
in
the family room,
her
wary pleasure in talking
to
your daughters at dinner,
the
old irony in her eyes
when
she studies your wife,
the
counters she keeps cleared,
not
a muffin crumb in the toaster.
But
some days
she's
like this morning:
You
hear her up before you,
out
to bring in the paper.
When
you come down
she
sits hunched at the table,
nothing
on but her unbuttoned housecoat,
a
spill from her overfilled mug
soaking
the comics.
"Damnation,"
she whispers,
without
a laugh. "Damnation."
"I'll
get some paper towel,"
you
offer, patting her shoulder.
wanting
to kid her,
"But,
Mom, you don't believe
in
God or hell."
"I
know what you're thinking,"
she
glares, still whispering.
With
a flail of her hand
she
knocks the mug to the floor--
"And
God damn you!"
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diatribe
Riled,
the father railed,
the
scolding switching
to
diatribe,
the
repetition
of
"horseshit,
fucking
horseshit"
like
the strokes
of
coarse-grained sandpaper
replaced
by the rasping
medium
whisper
of
"not my son . . .
not
my son . . .
not
my son . . ."
And
then
that
fine finishing swipe--
"Don't
you come
to
my funeral"--
that
left the kid smooth
and
closed
as
the reclasped lid
of
his mother's jewelry box.
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