USA

carlos_martinez@antiochla.edu

Family portrait

There it is, our cheap bid at immortality,
Vivid colors embedded in cellulose turned
Into photographic paper. There we sit, still
And seeming natural. What I remember is
My sons leaned on one leg, my wife’s elbow
Dug into my back and we were compelled
To say Cheese over and over again  
Until I thought my face would crack,
Until we achieved this perfection. Now,
The prints have been bought and framed
And hung throughout the house, us frozen
In time’s pure moment while time itself
Goes on and our bodies mature or fail.

Whenever I walk by it, I am amazed at how
Much hair I had then, how my wife’s
Butterfat body was so much slimmer
And the boys were still almost babies
Instead of men whose deep voices
Whenever they come to visit tremble
The house and peel the wallpaper. We 
Believed we would live forever. We did.

The colors haven’t faded much.
The reds and blues are still as vivid,
Though my memory’s faded and I feel
More aches and pains than I did then.
Friends have come and gone, passed away,
And our parents have gone on to prepare
The inevitable way my wife insists will be
Paved with the petals of roses. I don’t
Believe any of it. We are growing old.
The children have become men. The glass
In our windows is now cracked, the insulation
In the wall weakened. We know what cold means.
We know medicines, our annual visits
To the geriatric specialist, keep the cold wind
Of tomorrow at bay. We are afraid to go to sleep
At night, afraid to wake up and begin
Another day the same as the one before,
Another day of waiting. But in this expensive
Photograph purchased years ago, we are not
Either young or old, but comfortably 
Middle-aged and the fake sky in the background
Behind us is a Technicolor blue. Today,
When I glanced out of the window, it was grey.

The AARP Application Arrives in The Mail

Though by the standards of a century ago, I am an old man,
Two centuries ago I would already have been dead,
Though my knees ache now almost every moment
Of every day, and I rise every morning around three
To hobble to the bathroom to pee painfully and drip
My way back to my bed, though young women don't glance
My way anymore the way they once used to, and the tiny
Bikini bathing suit I once wore proudly is now stuffed
Into the back of a bottom drawer and I wear long, baggy
Shorts to the beach now and never take my sweatshirt off,
And my once long hair is mostly gone and what is left
Is gray and very short, and the skin beneath my chin
Hangs down and trembles ever so slightly when I walk
With that peculiar almost imperceptible sway
Men of my age are subject to, and lately I've noticed
Liver spots beginning to encroach
There where my hairline recedes and my forehead begins,
And some have somehow sprouted on the backs
Of my hands, whose knuckles swell on rainy days
Or when the air is too humid but otherwise beautiful,
When I look in the mirror in the morning and see
How the small wasp waist
Is buried under the avalanche of time,
I still raise my voice in the shower
And drown out the sound
Water makes
When wearing everything down.

When our mother finally left you
(After a poem by Sharon Olds)

When our mother finally left you, old man, we rejoiced.
We danced alone in our living rooms.
We took off our shoes and socks and caressed our feet.

We crooned at the moon and the stars that night.
We ran wild through the streets
After everyone in the neighborhood had gone
To sleep. And then we slept and woke the next day
To the realization that where you had been, the air
Had rushed in overnight to efface all traces and signs
Of you, who had for so many nights staggered through
The front door drunk and bellicose, shouting first
Before you began to beat mom silly, though most nights
She gave as good as she got and the next morning
Both of you woke up black and blue, barely able
To rise and begin another day pretending nothing bad
Had happened the night before. The five of us wore
Our silence like cloaks, at the breakfast table where
I swore
To myself someday I would grow up to take you on, hand
To hand, and defeat you, though I never did. One night
After I was grown and long gone, my brother rose
From his bed, all of sixteen, picked up a piece of
wood
And whacked you with it across the back of the head
Until you went down for a very long time.
When you rose you were a changed man.
Now, so old you cannot move by yourself,
So old your eyelids hang down heavily
And a trip to the bathroom becomes
An adventure with an uncertain end, we are nowhere
To be found, now that you need us, now that we have no
need.

Agnostic's Hope
(For Patricia Bowyer, d. 1996, aged 52)

When you arrived at the pearly gates
Were the gates pearly or were their hinges
Rusted, the locks broken, swung wide open,
Did the gates hang in space? Was St. Peter's podium
Turned over in the heavenly dust, the big book's
Pages scattered and illegible? Was anyone
Waiting for you, to sign you in, assign you
A berth, a place to put your stuff, before
You were escorted to a heavenly feast to sit
At you know who's right hand for your
Moment of glory, before you wandered away
Into the dazzling light, that rumor has it,
Goes on forever? Or did you arrive forlorn,
Confused, alone, to find your way
Through the worm-eaten wood
Of a gate in an old picket fence
No one had painted in untold ages, to wander
Overgrown fields where the harvest had never
Been taken in, to thresh wheat from chaff?
Did you see any light, the great big white one
That is supposed to beckon you to it? Or
Did you find the big lighthouse bulb of it
Burned out and never replaced? Questions
And more questions, Patricia, as I sit
On this cold winter's night and wonder
What happened, to where it was you went
That night you closed your eyes and disappeared
Three, no, more than three, long years ago.

Mastectomy
(for my friend Caroline)

    When you lose a breast,
    When that flesh
    Is cut
    And thrown away, you lose
    Your breath, forget
    How to breathe,
    Doubt you can live
    Another day.
     - Anonymous

Leaning over the seemingly dead
Anemone of your hair splayed
On the hospital pillow, I smell
The sour smell of your grief and pain
While you still sleep curled into
Yourself and dream of your bare
Chest unscarred by surgery and your
Two apple breasts untouched
Or brushed by the knife's sharp leaf.
I want to touch that empty space
And the other breast, like cheap labor
Admiring fruit forbidden to be picked.

The one's been sent to pathology
For further analysis,
Carried like royalty, in a steel pan,
For someone to see through
The microscope's revealing power
If the carcinoma has spread beyond
Milk ducts, the dry rivers love
Was supposed to one day fill.

I lean over to kiss your forehead
Before I leave, brush your hair,
Wipe the sweat away with my
Inadequate fingertips that could
Not prevent this from its inevitable
Happening, could not brush away
The fear, though my silent love
Stands haggardly in this bright room.

The raw honey of this poem
Is all I have brought to give.

© All Copyright, 2000, Carlos Martinez.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.