12-01-2025, 01:21 AM
Both Sides of the Line
When I was between stepfathers,
I ate on a wobbling tray
to the vacuum tube glow
of the television.
After she remarried,
we stared at our food,
forks lifted so mouths
were full when a question came.
Dinner was eyes down,
passing salt, and a plate shattered
against a wall.
My mother has been dead
for ten years.
Soon we will be the same age,
and while I remember the call
the words in fragments
I couldn’t assemble,
sound stripped of meaning
like a bleached photograph
image blurred
into someone who only looks familiar,
a voice already fading,
the way mine will fade
for my children
who sit at my table
staring at their food.
When I was between stepfathers,
I ate on a wobbling tray
to the vacuum tube glow
of the television.
After she remarried,
we stared at our food,
forks lifted so mouths
were full when a question came.
Dinner was eyes down,
passing salt, and a plate shattered
against a wall.
My mother has been dead
for ten years.
Soon we will be the same age,
and while I remember the call
the words in fragments
I couldn’t assemble,
sound stripped of meaning
like a bleached photograph
image blurred
into someone who only looks familiar,
a voice already fading,
the way mine will fade
for my children
who sit at my table
staring at their food.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson