This one feels a bit flat and clunky to me, so any suggestions as to how to reanimate it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
A box of doomed kittens
Dad’s depressed and won’t leave the house,
preferring daily consultations with Dr Google.
He lists every ache and twinge, hoping for
a diagnosis other than death is inevitable.
Mum is sitting at my kitchen table, crying.
She can’t stop. She has moon-shaped hollows
beneath her eyes and keeps saying Shut
up.
Get a hold of yourself. She never lets me in.
She’s all structural wall, her whole life dedicated
to holding up the roof but there’s no front door.
It’s as though I can only see her over a vast
distance or read her in translation. My anger
becomes something large and blossoming
squeezed into a small space, like a heart.
Then Mum tells me a story about
why she hates the Animal Welfare League.
A woman was rude to her forty-three years ago
when she tried to save a box of kittens dumped
in our front yard. And right
then, I see her:
young, willowy, wild hair and a green dress.
She’s squaring her shoulders at the counter
and holding her three-year-old daughter’s hand,
trying so hard to be the person that little girl sees.
Strong. Protective. Always doing the right thing.
Even without windows, I can see that these are
the steadfast stones of her walls, keeping her
trapped in a house with a sad man petrified
by his own soft, animal mortality.
Life -
so pointless and perfect we cling to it at all costs.
I reach across the table and take hold of her hand.
ReplyDeletewow so much great stuff in here
the old embarrassment of riches
that tends to often overwhelm the story
which is the best thing in here
so much great observation on the story
but it slows the story down
making me wonder if some of those threads need their own (other) stories?
for me
overall it needs to somehow be smoother in its unsettling
somehow yr penultimate line -
Life -
so pointless and perfect we cling to it at all costs.
would be better near the beginning
and have the rest of the poem prove this
... which it does
and yv already got a great beginning
which is right into the story
I think there's a serious editing conundrum here
the kittens are too beautiful to kill!
Wow so much here in your narrative Rachael, and the range of emotion vast (a good thing here I feel) Life - eh?
ReplyDeleteI read Kit's observations and feel the same now - (wow) so much in these observations will look for the follow up on this one.
Hi Rachael, I love all you shaw and suggest in this poem, I don't know it it helps but ... like a game, I tried another order and it reads like this:
ReplyDeleteShut up. Get a hold of yourself, Mum keeps saying
sitting at my kitchen table, crying.
She can’t stop. She has moon-shaped hollows
beneath her eyes. She never lets me in.
He lists every ache and twinge, hoping for
a diagnosis other than death is inevitable.
Dad’s depressed and won’t leave the house,
preferring daily consultations with Dr Google.
Life -
so pointless and perfect we cling to it at all costs.
She’s all structural wall, her whole life dedicated
to holding up the roof but there’s no front door.
It’s as though I can only see her over a vast
distance or read her in translation. My anger
becomes something large and blossoming
squeezed into a small space, like a heart.
Then Mum tells me a story about
why she hates the Animal Welfare League.
A woman was rude to her forty-three years ago
when she tried to save a box of kittens dumped
in our front yard. And right then, I see her:
young, willowy, wild hair and a green dress.
She’s squaring her shoulders at the counter
and holding her three-year-old daughter’s hand,
trying so hard to be the person that little girl sees.
Strong. Protective. Always doing the right thing.
Even without windows, I can see that these are
the steadfast stones of her walls, keeping her
trapped in a house with a sad man petrified
h by his own soft, animal mortality.
I reach across the table and take hold of her hand.
O my... the lay out is not restected... I put on the right side of the page all what concerns the father, left what concerns the mother and in the middle what concerns the daughter ...
ReplyDelete