To Prove That We Existed Before You Were Born - Charles Harper Webb

Sunday, July 20, 2008

"We'll tell you how your mom worked at the hospital,
"treating" people like the tattered, gray-faced man
who shoves his shopping cart down Verdugo,
muttering to the Tsar. How, between bouts
at my desk, I'd bumble barefoot through the house,
feeding our fish, or patting Marvin, the cat.

Mom will tell how, at her first job, age 16,
she found a dead mouse in Baskin-Robbin's hot fudge,
called the manager at home, and when he didn't
believe her, dropped the chocolate-covered Mickey
on his big desk-blotter, and never returned.
I'll tell about playing The Catacombs, and resurrect

my sunburst Stratocaster from its coffin-case.
I might even tell how I clubbed a Bandido with a mike-
stand when he rushed the stage, and how I'd pull away
from girlfriends in Portland, Billings, Coeur d'Alene,
my red pickup sagging with band gear, and barely see
the road for tears until, in a few miles, the clouds lifted,

a surge of freedom picked me up, and surfing
on its crest, I'd start to sing. You'll hear the way
you heard "Jack the Giant-Killer", and "Snow White",
as if our lives are fairy tales from "olden days".
Your world will be about your friends, your baseball,
your Tickle Me Elmo, or whatever the fad is.

You won't know for many years that the musk
of narcissus on a March day made us feel sexy,
just as it will you. You'd never guess
that, when you were a neural tube, an ember
trying to make a flame, your mom felt sick,
so we went walking on the street we were leaving

to find a better place for you. A north wind
gnawed our lips, but as we walked, holding hands
inside my parka pocket, your mom's nausea lifted,
and my grief to feel you stealing her from me.
Inventing songs about our turtles - Mr. Cow,
Peg Webb, Trout-Boy, and Tammy Faye -

we started laughing, and stopped on the sidewalk
(cracked by the last earthquake), and kissed
as long and desperately as if we were saying goodbye -
kissed the way our parents may have
(since we're both eldest children) - kissed as if
we didn't need you, one last time."

@ poemhunter