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MY MOTHER'S DRAW
In a draw they sit, in the other room, the middle one of my girlfriend's
mahogany dresser,
under a blue sweatshirt redolent of her beloved cologne's eiffel tower,
frilled pages torn from a spiral
Among her parents, brothers, dead too, the occupation,
armies fleeing Germans, arrests on blue village streets, traitors shot
through the mouth, me,
in the draw, all of us, mixed in, snapshots my father, hangings, exploding
shells composed in a star pupil's large round blue script--
beside drawings made on cardboard from my father's starched shirts.
John Kennedy and Martin Luther King I drew. She was so proud. A knight
with
crayons. And a football player. And here are my compositions from sixth
grade, across the top of which the teacher wrote
"Magnificent!" and "Excellent!".
She was so proud. She kept it all. All of me, in there with her, altar on
which her letters wait, like Isaac, under the knife of a turned eye.
Once in a while, quickly, I pull one, scan, fold it: an unread letter is a
slammed draw.
So many in there, together.
Nor would I exaggerate graves. But it is easier to be bound hand and foot
and
gagged by an unshed tear,
than endure the nervous dirty immolation of feeling racked by loss.
I had read some of the letters, after. Sorted through their dates
and placed a rubber band around.
When she was gone. All in their original envelopes too..
I do not want to say here how much I love. I do not want to cry or be cliché
or admit that since she died I bear with me the sense that life is stupid,
difficult and cruel.
For I remain upright, proclaim miracles: small red roses clap hands on t.v.
But there is blood and dirt, cartilage and dread, and broken desires in
that draw.
There are shouting voices, there are crying children and there are
gunshots
in that draw.
There is smoke in that draw and screams.
And it is a wonder, a miracle really, that the whole dresser, the entire
room, this very building,
even the world
has not burned down
for what
is
in....
that draw.
- Alan Kaufman