Fathers
in wood boxes among broken saw blades, the empty arc of a hacksaw,
huge ice-tongs you remember (blue blocks of ice hauled in
every morning), dull icepicks so large we can't figure what they are
until you remember his white shirt and taut shoulders, the white nails
of his clenched hand like Abraham's, the ritual jabbing and chipping
clean ice for the cases. You grew up spoiled by red beefsteaks
piled from the freezers, barrels of red snapper steaks,
white fish flesh beautiful as egret feathers—meat cut so deftly
the place was practically bloodless, the ice underneath always edible.
And so they are icepicks, rusting in the humid heat of this city.
We detect no bloodstains on wood handles, not even a thumbprint.
White enameled meat trays hang on nails over our heads.
You remember eating icicles in midsummer.
railyard, private world of steel, I come
among slow rumbling loads of moving cars.
I know where you are. Weak station lights diffuse.
Fifty yards into the void, your face is fixed,
impassive under that billed hat. You contemplate cargo:
trains of sugar to New York, grain to Florida.
Inside the lantern's circled light, you walk the track,
swinging glare scattered starward. Listen, if you cannot see:
the switchman's shout, the distant clang of coupling
cars, the jolt, the hiss of brakes released.
Your heavy shoes crunch gravel, kick a loose tie.
You wait. Slowly up and down, your lantern moves,
a clear signal I never understood.
The Red Coat
It's sleeting when we walk from the white church,
the ground frozen, the brown grass brittle.
I am somewhat back in the long black line of mourners,
behind my sisters, their husbands and children. I see it
all as it's happening as though it's not happening.
The roses on the polished oak of my father's coffin
are sheeting with ice and I know the red coat
is too thin to keep my mother warm. She's not shivering.
She walks across the breaking grass behind the coffin
slowly and with great dignity—without her oxygen tank,
her mouth open, a rose filled with snow.
She's walking toward something silver and mechanical,
like a fence around the grave. There's a canopy imprinted
with the logo of the funeral home, Herndon and Sons,
and four rows of white plastic chairs and the artificial grass.
A blue tarp covers a red clay pile of earth. We aren't supposed
to notice these things. Bits of color in wool hats and scarves
and the red coat. My mother was determined to wear the red coat
which I'd bought for myself but gave to her because she loved it,
because it is the color that he loved on her,
because I could not bear her not having anything she loved.
Mrs. Ramsay's Knee
Utah State University Press
Copyright © 2008 by Idris Anderson
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission
