Cecil Morris
I Did Not Understand My Mother
&
In the Unfenced Garden, He Invites the Deer
I Did Not Understand My Mother
She imagined every day would be the perfect day,
a long slow progression of dominoes falling right,
both at home and at work, everything washed, folded,
and tucked in drawers, dishes up except the sentinels
awaiting supper, and that supper no more than ten minutes
from table with nothing burned, and no jays screaming
from the phone lines, no god-dam pigeons, no squirrels
with their chatter. Maybe a good game on. And from work
a fucking boss who noticed for once his diligence,
his skill. Or nothing. A day unworthy of comment,
a day like drawn curtains, like sheets spread on the bed.
This could be that day. She would move lightly through kitchen,
a dancer bringing food, a presence almost unseen,
a smile in reserve and ready. He would eat and sip
his beer and maybe say something sweet about the rice,
the many ways she could make it taste. Sometimes I would
catch her staring off and I would ask her what she saw,
and she would shake her head and talk about him and dinner,
the peaceable kingdom, the lion mollified to lamb,
how good life was in our small house. And I, at 14
(and 12 and 16), and not blind or deaf or senseless
as the empties I carted back to the store on my bike,
I thought only of escape, of life without ducking
or erasing myself. If I stared off, I was seeing
a car, the windows down, my hair whipping around my head,
the speedometer reading 60 then 65,
no place like home, no place like home, no place like home.
In all my day dreams I was going or gone.
In the Unfenced Garden, He Invites the Deer
He counts now the birthdays to come,
the birthdays past too large a number for memory
to organize into a list, too accidental
to celebrate as an accomplishment or triumph
of the will. Might as well laud the rock for holding still,
he thinks. He thinks of the birthdays to come like the deer
that come sometimes into his yard to graze his flowers.
They stare at him in placid indifference
or, maybe, in gratitude for the bright snacks
he has set out. They are accidents of grace,
this small unhurried herd. Sometimes he rolls apples
to them. They like all the varietals he has tried.
He thinks he can manage the birthdays to come
with his fingers and toes, with the friendly heat
of late afternoon sun—the golden hour—
burnishing the deer, with four or five poems.
He does not read novels or memoirs anymore.
Too long, he thinks. He wants something he can finish
before the sun sets. His friend calls the deer tall rats
or rats on stilts. She weights her pockets with small stones
to drive them off. She prizes her flowers.
She says there are no accidents, certainly none of grace
or forgiveness for that matter. She calls him
her ally, her back-up husband. He smiles.
Desire has deserted him. She takes him with her
to protest marches, brings signs for him to carry,
reminds him of injustices to right. During speeches,
he lets his mind wander through the crowd, the trees,
the birds that come and go, but he likes the chants.
At home today, he shares small Galas with the deer
and their delicate feet of birthdays that may yet come
and lets the sun enter him.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere. He is trying to learn the names of all the birds that frequent the yard he shares with his patient partner, the mother of their children.