Family Talk

Today came the e-mail that announces the details of our family's annual reunion. Each year, a family member picks a Sunday in June for a picnic. We arrive from all over the Midwest, Colorado, California, and elsewhere to our hometown in Central Illinois. The afternoon is spent catching up on each others' lives over fried chicken, potato salad, and (if we're feeling especially brave in a public park !) a couple bottles of beer.

The month of June is chosen in honor of Grandma Kelly - the family matriarch of our Irish clan who used to organize these get-togethers. The tradition began in the 1970's and some of my fondest childhood memories reside there. Those Sundays always began by accompanying Grandma Kelly to 7:30 A.M. Mass and heading straight to the park afterwards. There we would reserve half a dozen picnic tables under the elms and maples. Wide stretches of grass held ball diamonds and swingsets and the promise of day-long games of tag, frisbee, or water balloon fights. Those Sunday memories still bloom today when I pass a park full of kids - with grandparents gathered at picnic tables watching over their own families.

Today, e-mail is such a simple and cost-effective way to notify family members across the country about up-coming events. In days past, the best option was the telephone, but timing was a problem. With no answering machines, you had to catch the person at home. With so many people spread out across so many time-zones, this was a challenge. An e-mail works much better. If e-mails and answering machines disappeared tomorrow, then I'm afraid the old way would be even harder still. Today's schedules are more frantic than ever. Who in the hell would have the time and patience to make those calls ?

Besides someone like Grandma Kelly ?

Served

i was at the stove/potatoes onions and garlic dancing for me/and the radio was playing/my cat moved as he pleased/from the kitchen to the back stairs/he didn't fancy the menu that night/and it was a chance to jump bail/on the four walls/on the same old same old/so i stirred the veggies/and he prowled the back porch/three stairflights and one deadbolt/to contain him/the radio rang out the news/i snarled back and the radio continued/a touch more olive oil/and the mayor expressed disappointment/the markets were steady/yankees beat the sox/and the same old same old/when behind me he howled/i heard his cry and spun around/

i spun to the white-hot stab of guilt that ever made me allow him out/please god/please/and in an instant/i could exhale/

as he looked up through a half-inch thick cobweb/strung from one ear/over his nose/and into his whiskers/like a drunken matador/thank god

i swept them away/and he turned right back around/and returned to the ring

dumb fuck

with my potatoes and
radio dinner companion
i was.

anotherpoem

ANCIENT

there was a time

when swamps ruled

and mermaids traded in copper
the sun's advance

for tables under pinwheels

that perfect slice
of morning
when even the Incas gambled.