Talking with the Dead

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Himself: Fixing broken things, spoiling me….shame on him, and thinking about packing. Herself: Tried on one of the travel outfits. Poetry group said the shirt didn’t look too worn, and the pants worked great. Reading: Just arrived: Spandau. Balance: Walking by the bay. Reading the poem a second time and hearing what they said.

I wear bits of mother sometimes
thinking she knows I’m wearing
her diamonds, her soul, her dislike.
Rarely do I talk with her.

I wear my father on occasion
a ring or a watch or a fob.
He ignores me.

I sit with silent Gimpa
in the Morris chair bought to go with him
to college

I the granddaughter who failed in school
tell him I went to college
and graduated with honors
as if it matters now

What matters are the books,
all books,
the science fiction, mysteries,
collected cookbooks that line my shelves

books that obscure the childhood
the inedible foods,
the tough mutton and slimy okra,
the hives, vomiting
the punishments

Always bread and milk
love masked in beatings
the anger hidden by Limoges
by Spode

The childhood hidden,
by generations
of possessions now given away
safe somewhere new
while I
making a whole new circle
learn to love myself in the end.