by Sandra Lowen

Created on: January 04, 2010

Poetry: Family Memories

I

“Dad, why did Mommy leave? Can I go with her?”

“No, ‘cause I don’t think she’ll be coming back.

We’ll go to town and live with Uncle Arthur

And stay there ‘til our lives get back on track.”

“But Daddy, Uncle Arthur’s kind of crazy.

He even yells at you when he gets mad,

And then he breaks up stuff, and says he’ll kill us,

And when he talks like that it scares me bad.”

“Okay, so we can stay with your grandmother.

She’s always saying she’d like us to come.”

“But Daddy, Granny doesn’t really like you,

And half the time she sits there sipping rum.

“Well, Son, your granny only drinks on weekends.”

“But Daddy, she has got a big ol’ dog!”

“Then let’s go somewhere else—to California!”

“But Daddy, they have earthquakes, and there’s smog.”

“Come on. Let’s put our two big heads together

And come up with a place. We’re not two fools.”

“But Daddy, I just joined the junior swim team,

And if we move, I’ll have to change my school.

I should have said before: My tooth is hurting,

And Mom’s the one with the insurance card.”

“You know, I thought that I could take care of you,

But I can see right now that it’s too hard.

So here’s your hat, a dollar and a handshake,

And everything of yours that I could pack.

Go up those stairs and ring the doorbell

And tell them that your folks aren’t coming back.”

II

Twelve years of wearing castoff surplus clothing.

Twelve years of having not enough to eat.

No mom to rock me nightly into slumber,

No dad to help me find paths for my feet.

Sometimes I know I looked a little scruffly.

Sometimes I didn’t know quite what to do.

You see, the world had treated me so roughly

It colored everything in my worldview.

I never caught the fly ball at the ballpark.

Or proudly wore wool hand-knit scarves to school.

I never got a Christmas check from grandma

Or spent a lazy summer by her pool.

But still,  I got the scholarships to college.

I wasn’t best in class, but I was third.

I wish I had some messages from Daddy,

But all these years he never wrote a word.

III

Today I got the keys to my apartment

Tomorrow I’ll go down to buy my car.

They’ve given me a second secretary.

They tell me that I’m really going far.

Out there somewhere there breathes a loving woman

Just waiting for an honorable man.

I’ll search the world around until I find her

And I’ll make her my own; I know I can.

We’ll have a son we’ll raise with adoration

And fill with golden memories of youth.

He’ll never suffer the humiliation

Of being cast off with an aching tooth.

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