Verdi's Rigoletto/Chinese Chicken Salad

I know why someone would keep recipes,

why someone would cut them out of a magazine

and adhere them to index cards,

But I didn't know why my mother’s recipes were glued

to the back of cards already used,

already written on in my father’s handwriting

as he catalogued

the record albums he owned.

Hot mulled wine on one side,

Weill, “Lost in the Stars”

Decca 8028

Todd Duncan

on the other.

Chickpea Dip on one side,

Gounod - “Faust” arias

Music appreciation 20203

on the other.

While my mother is here to tell me

how she used the backs of the cards

because reusing was what you did

because you couldn't simply go buy more

just because you wanted to,

My father is not here to tell me

what it meant

to catalog record albums.

How did he decide on this activity?

How did he choose to buy index cards

and write down every album

and alphabetize them by title

and keep them in a box?

And how did that box one day become my mother’s?

How was it decided

to turn Donizetti -  “Lucia de Lammermoor” arias

Royale 1211

Into Pineapple-Yogurt pudding?

Donations

I put another piece of my father in the Lions box today.

All month I’ve been saying goodbye to parts of him,

ferreting items

from the trunk of my car to the appropriate drop box,

leaving his things around town,

As if giant bins were lending libraries,

and he was overdue.

Today I left his glasses,

all the  many pairs.

Large brown scratched prescription sunglasses,

dusty bifocals with metal frames.

Dropping the half black ones

from my childhood

through the dark slot,

the ones he wore with one side tucked behind his ear,

and the other dangling down beneath his chin

like monkeys in a barrel,

as he examined broken door knobs

or loaded film into his camera.

Last week I left his clothing at Goodwill.

I removed the pins from his lapels,

the enameled blue Rotary one,

the American College of Dentistry one,

The Quiet Birdmen wings,

and the etched silver heart my mother made.

I found forgotten nametags,

and yarmulkes from services he’d attended,

tucked into pockets.

I found the program to a concert I’d sung in, the one where he came

and ate strawberries at the reception,

and told me how he loved the berries

and the music.

Underwear in the garbage,

handkerchiefs my mother ironed

joining them.

Watches

all stopped

10:21, 3:14, 5:44 and 2:27

Expired passports burned in the fireplace,

My young parents, unsmiling,

curling,

turning to ash.

Cologne.

My father’s smell at the end of the day,

all in small bottles on his dresser.

I could be in that smell.

Suddenly back in the car with him after my piano lesson in town,

Or standing next to his bureau and examine the tangle of cuff links and tie tacks

he kept

in a wooden music box

from Switzerland

while he dressed and dabbed on

cologne.

His Time and Private Pilot magazines,

collected and studied over breakfast each day,

in the recycling box on Wednesday.

His photography equipment,

filters and lenses, enlarger and metal trays,

donated to the art school.

I said goodbye to my father this month.

People will find parts of him I’ve left

all over town.

They will wear his clothes,

They will wind his watches.

One day unexpected,

I may pass my father in the street,

wearing half glasses,

Royal Copenhagen,

and Rockport shoes.

2003 Eulogy

It’s Sunday. I am 9. I am once again trailing after my father in Sears. In the hardware department. “Okay? “ He says, as if ready to leave. He’s not ready. We stop again. My Sundays are filled with trips to hold jigsaws and nails.

It’s autumn. The leaves are their brightest gold and he rakes while I fill up wheelbarrows with pungent, soft fallen apples. We share the yard in silence, my father gathering leaves, me wishing I could be invisible.

His office.  I spin on his stool on abandoned Saturdays. I dig through the hygienist’s ring boxes and claim the jewels for myself. We hang out the window together and watch the parade pass by.  We call home, promising to leave soon.

I sit in the passenger seat of the plane, holding his camera tight. Please, don’t take pictures, please don’t take your eyes off the road of clouds. I quietly slip my fingers onto the wheel as if I could right the plane, not talking to him.  Just looking out the window as we fly over our house and tip our wings.

It is nighttime. I’m in my canopy bed. He sings me lullabies. He checks my pulse on feverish nights, his sleepy breathing filling my dreamless space with sound.  Until I turn heavy he tosses me in bed.

I cannot sleep.  I slip quietly into his room and lie down on the edge of his bed, one foot still on the floor in case I’m asked to leave.  He makes room for me.  I watch the orange numbers turn their lonely night hours. “Goodnight, dear,” he says to me. I go back to my room when the nightmares have left.

It is my first car.  My father and I drive for 700 miles to move me into my college home.  We marvel at needing to fill the tank only once.  We stay in a hotel in New Jersey.  We eat together, just us two.  He sleeps in my new bed and we speed in unmoving traffic to the airport the next day.

It’s February.  He sighs and smiles as my children run along the path in front of him, their towels like capes around their heroic shoulders.  Just to watch them.

It is three days after Thanksgiving, the contractions are frequent.  He makes it to the hospital even before I do, walking the hallways with me while carrying his raincoat over his arm.  “It might be a while,” I say.  “Why are you here so early?” “Where else would I be?”

It is time. I cannot sleep.  He lies in bed in his own dreams, his breathing filling the room with its yearning. I lie down on the edge of his bed, one foot still on the floor. He makes room for me.  “Goodnight, dear,” he says to me. Goodnight, Dad.

320 Danforth Street

Breathe in.

The smell of our house after we’d been away,

The smell of dinner downstairs.

Of cabbage,

Of fire.

Of summer, mildew, home.

The radiator where I’d drape wet mittens to dry,

After playing in the snow.

The radiator where I’d hidden

my uneaten sandwiches,

After school,

Because they were tuna with mung beans,

Unsprouted,

And fishy.

Because I foolishly believed no one would find them there,

Because it took years before anyone did.

Never thinking instead to ask for a different lunch,

Or to throw away the sandwiches

Before I’d left for home.

The living room,

The ballet recitals 

Given by me,

To an imagined audience,

In a leotard with snaps at the crotch,

And sagging tights with seams showing

In un-Danskin places,

With ballet slippers I’d wished were toe shoes.

Lit by the light of the slide projector,

Plugged in for me,

No slides,

Just the light shining on my dancing.

Just me,

On the fireplace hearth,

Famous.

The room of glass never heated,

Even with a woodstove.

Yet my mother brought

Blue and white mugs,

Packets of powdered hot chocolate,

Spoons,

Small cloth napkins,

Russian Spice Tea we'd bought,

Because we liked the smell,

Even though we didn’t like tea,

And put them all in a small set of cardboard drawers,

with little plastic loops for drawer pulls.

The room was so cold.

Yet my mother brought

A kettle to put on the stove,

And we’d wait for the water to heat.

We’d ready our tea in our mugs,

and we’d pour the almost hot water

over it,

And we’d sit

and sip

Until it was too cold to sit and sip.

And pretend we were warm

While the snow fell outside.  

Out of the tub just before 7

On a Sunday

So I could sit

In my flannel nightgown

With a towel around my wet hair

At the foot of my parents’ bed

and watch

Disney

I wasn’t allowed in

Without his permission.

His room was dark

And smelly

And private.

He was sure I wanted to be in his room,

Which was true.

He rigged an alarm to sound

whenever I opened the door.

I learned over time

To open it

slowly,

So slowly,

And could enter without a sound,

And could look through his desk,

And take his money,

and put the small rubber bands from his braces

Around my tongue,

Dividing it into two

Or three,

Like sausage links.

I marked the sunrise

in pencil,

Just a small dot,

Hidden in the confusion

of blue flowers

and swirls.

No dates,

No times,

Just when I happened to notice

its light

as it smoothed its way

along the walls

of my bedroom.

He locked me in

While I was in the tub,

Or looking at myself in the mirror,

Or looking at the neighbors out the window.

I didn’t hear him turn one of the locks,

But when I’d hear him turn the other,

I was locked in.

Screaming.

Let me out!

Let me out!

I hate you!

I imagined opening the window and climbing somehow onto the high sill

and squeezing through

the too small space

And jumping down

the too high height

And dying

Or breaking all my bones

And wait until I tell!

Wait until they find out!

I hate you!

Let me out!

Crying,

Sobbing,

Until he let me out

With no apology.

Baby.