The Underworld
I type in the name of the sister I lost.
A number pops up on the screen, along
with two coordinates to guide me through
the vast array of waist-high cuboids,
marble like sarcophagi, but plain as pine.
I press on through the half-light, reaching
at last the crossing where she’s kept. Amber
light projects her number on the plinth.
Make no mistake. This is the one you seek.
If you wish to continue, say her name —
aloud. I do as I’m told and the marble
slides open, revealing my sister’s head
and torso. Don’t be shocked. Legs are useless
in this place. All they do is take up space.
I look down at my sister, who hasn’t aged
in forty-eight years. No sign of decay.
Her eyes blink open — like a doll’s, frozen
with terror. This is what your mother saw.
When I look away, her hands fly out
from under the shroud, flailing at first,
as if they weren’t connected to her brain,
then, seizing my wrist, she sears it with cold,
as if burning could cancel out absence.
She’s holding on the way I can’t let go.
* * * * *
Mudman
I’m watching a friend make cassoulet
à la Julia Child with pork skin, sausage,
mutton, goose confit, haricot beans,
when the back door opens, and my father
walks in, smeared with mud and oil
like a soul from a bog in Dante’s Inferno,
but nonchalant, as if he’d just brought in the mail.
He takes off his boots — it was his house, after all —
while my friend shoots me a flummoxed glance:
why have I let this vagabond in?
But he knows not to argue, and ends up
inviting the vagrant for dinner. My father
declines, says all he wants is a single poached egg
with buttered toast and a cup of fresh coffee.
He edges past us, careful not to soil our clothes,
and wanders through the living room, taking
a moment to gaze at his chair, then climbs
the front stairs without a pause to catch his breath.
At the landing — perhaps for the first time — he keeps on
going without stopping to tap the barometer,
sailing on past as if weather were nothing.
At the top of the stairs our old dog stirs, his tail
thumping hard against the rug. The bathroom door
closes. Water runs in the claw-footed tub. Later, ruddy,
clean-shaven, my father joins us, his eyes burning blue
like stars. He sits down, sips his coffee, begins,
slowly, to eat his egg, then turns to me and smiles —
as if he knows the past won’t find us here.