My mother never forgave my father for sleeping
with Neil. You don’t need a wife, she screamed;
You already have one. She sounded like a whipping woman
but she was wounded. For years, she shut herself
in their bedroom and slept. Once, her baking was so fine
that the silverfish in our house were morbidly obese.
To think of my parents now costs me such an effort.
My heart thumps as if I might faint or die.
I hope they are resting. They were not so strong,
pulling on each other’s hair when the devil seized them—
Mother, barefoot in her nightgown, and Father, in his
leather slippers and black-watch robe—
like erect white stems blurred silvery gray by pollen.
I feel so much admiration for them.
- Henri Cole