That Said (24 page)

just like in the old days when he was in mint

condition, a smart aleck; before he became

slack-jawed, dumb—a dummy forever—and I

grew up, went solo, learned to speak for myself.

Flip-flopped, noosed in puka beads, my daughter

breezes through the store from headband to toe ring,

shooing me away from the bongs,

lace thongs, and studded dog collars.

And I don't want to see her in that black muscle tee

with
SLUT
stamped in gold glitter

shrink-wrapped over her breasts,

or those brown and chartreuse retro-plaid

hip-huggers ripped at the crotch.

 

There's not a shopper here a day over twenty

except me and another mother

parked in chairs at the dressing room entrance

beyond which we are forbidden to go.

We're human clothes racks.

Our daughters have trained us

to tamp down the least flicker of enthusiasm

for the nice dress with room to grow into,

an item they regard with sullen, nauseated,

eyeball-rolling disdain.

 

Waiting in the line for a dressing room,

my daughter checks her cleavage.

Her bellybutton's a Cyclops eye

peeking at other girls' armloads of clothes.

What if she's missed something—

that faux leopard hoodie? those coffee-wash flares?

Sinking under her stash of blouses,

she's a Shiva of tangled sleeves.

 

And where did she dig up that new tie-dyed

tank top I threw away in '69,

and the purple wash 'n' wear psychedelic dress

I washed and wore

and lost on my Grand Tour of Europe,

and my retired hippie Peace necklace

now recycled, revived, re-hip?

 

I thought they were gone—

like the tutus and tiaras and wands

when she morphed from ballerina

to fairy princess to mermaid to tomboy,

refusing to wear dresses ever again.

Gone, those pastel party dresses,

the sleeves, puffed water wings buoying her up

as she swam into waters over her head.

Putting on my socks, I noticed,

on my right foot, an ugly bunion and hammertoes.

How did my mother's foot

become part of me? I thought I'd buried it

years ago with the rest of her body,

next to my father in Cedar Park Cemetery.

How did it ever track me down,

knowing exactly which brick house

on the street was mine,

never having set foot in it alive?

 

During dinner, my husband was polite.

My daughter excused herself to do homework.

When it got too late to phone a hotel,

I invited the foot to spend the night.

I made up the studio couch, tucked the foot in,

tiptoed back to my bedroom.

A minute later came a knock at my door.

I'm lonesome,
the foot sobbed.

I'm not used to sleeping alone.
Whereupon

it hopped into bed between my husband and me.

 

Next morning, the foot woke up

on the wrong side of the bed.

Its instep hurt. Its big toe was out of joint.

So I kissed it, gave it a pedicure,

polished its five wiggling toenails Shanghai Red.

Life's really good here,
the foot said.

So much better than where I've just come from.

Mind if I use your phone?

I've got a pal who has one foot in the grave.

 

That night, my mother's left foot joined us.

Now they're both giving me advice:

Your bathroom is filthy.

That dress makes you look fat.

 

Along with her pearls, her diamond ring,

and her gold earrings, I've got

my mother's knees, her varicose veins,

flabby belly, sagging breasts—

 

In time I'll inherit whatever's left of her body.

What do I do with the Post-it notes

she stuck on the fridge?

Do I delete her e-mail asking

was it okay

if her little boy played

with my daughter's old keychains

stored in the shoebox under her bed?

 

Yes, of course. Be my guest.

While you're housesitting,

Mi casa es su casa,
I said.

Then I showed her

how to lock the front door

and handed her the keys.

 

Such a nice little boy, said our neighbor.

Such an attentive mother.

Tony, the locksmith down the street,

would reach inside a grimy jar,

as if fishing for a candy,

and hand the boy another key or two—

 

a bent key, a worn-down key,

a key with broken teeth,

old mailbox keys, luggage keys, and sometimes

as a special treat he'd let the boy

choose a shiny blank from the rotating display

and cut him a brand-new key

to add to his collection.

 

The morning she locked the doors

and turned on the alarm,

and stabbed her son and slit her wrists

and lay down on my dining room floor

to die, she left a message

on my best friend's voice mail:

Let yourself in.

Bring your spare key...

 

Now, it's as if my house

keeps playing tricks on me.

I open my lingerie drawer and find a key.

Whose is it?

Which lock does it belong to?

 

I find a key under the coffee table.

A key wedged between sofa cushions.

A key with a tag to a '71 Chevy.

Cleaning under my daughter's bed,

I find rings of keys, lots more keys,

none of which fits any lock in my house.

After Cavafy

 

Flickering above the pink rosettes

and your name iced in ivory buttercream,

a bouquet burns on top of your cake,

fifty blossoms of flame.

One candle equals a year of your life,

plus one more to wish on.

Hurry, make a wish, blow them out!

They're out. Now cut the cake.

 

But wait—a guttered wick sputters and sparks

as if it suddenly has a mind of its own—

now another is lighting up,

and one by one, the dead reawaken.

 

Rekindled years return like little waves of nausea.

Here's 1947, the year you were born.

And 1954, when your mother had your sister.

Now 1993 joins the crowd—that miserable December

you buried your father.

Blow it out, you'll forget again.

 

But the dead don't stay dead.

 

Mother and Father, conspiring behind the door,

dimmed the chandelier in the dining room

where you sat, a child at the head of the table,

in your pinafore, your paper party hat,

feigning surprise as the solemn

procession sang “Happy Birthday,”

your future lighting up before you.

 

There were fewer candles then.

You could blow all of them out at once.

But now, dozens of candles—

you can't draw a breath

deep enough to extinguish them all.

 

Gasping, you stand like a fool

before the growing years of your past

and the dwindling years of your future—

choking on smoke, putting out wildfires

while fresh ones spring up around you.

After she died, we told him, repeatedly,

to think of our house

as his. By seven, he was fully dressed

in slacks and a laundered shirt.

He made his own breakfast,

carried his coffee cup to the sink, and washed it.

He never opened the refrigerator

without asking our permission first.

All day he sat on the sofa, reading.

He reeled off his lists of medicines, blood counts,

tagging along to the grocery, the post office,

the kindergarten at three-fifteen,

grateful for any excuse to leave the house.

 

Suppose my father comes back again.

Suppose he comes back, not briefly—

as when the dead show up in dreams—

but on an open return ticket.

I'm sure I'll feel shy, tongue-tied, and formal,

the way I did when I ran into my old lover

years after we'd broken up.

 

I won't ply him with questions

about life on the other side.

I'll put clean sheets on the sofa bed.

All the jokes I've saved up to tell him—

I'll knock myself out to make him laugh.

Every morning I'll squeeze fresh orange juice,

fry two eggs over easy, just the way he likes them,

even when he says to please ignore him,

pretend he isn't here.

I'm here to kidnap my beloved aunt

from her apartment in Fort Lee, N.J.,

Flossie, my mother's older sister,