Being in Touch
Good morning--
I have just returned from NC. I spent a week with my friend
after Wildacres. I am now meeting my brothers in Wisconsin to
spread my mother’s ashes. I’ll be in touch when I return.
Blessings,
—Dora Robinson
Afterwards, I imagine the dust
of her life lingering on your fingertips,
wafting up into the sun-filled room
as you type off a quick note,
each mote a touch of her being,
a moment she spent alone
in her rocking chair, remembering.
Her favorite stories were yours.
Binge-drinking while cloistered
at that Chicago convent, blaming
the teargas and not the pain
when you cried during the riots
of ‘68. She told the world about
how you’d outwitted Daley all the way
to Texas only to find yourself
face-to-face with the Devil himself.
Even as a girl, you asked her impossible
questions about God and good
and giddiness, about the differences
between right and righteousness.
Her quiet smiles were her most honest
answers. You’ve left some of her
unfinished prayers on the laptop keys,
her being in touch. When the next
person sits there to write—perhaps
it will be one of your brothers,
or an old friend still alive in Wisconsin--
he will feel her papery skin there,
think of the way her cheeks glowed
in winter. If when your plane touches
down in Austin, the place feels
unfamiliar, and you finger away a tear
rising up from the past like a ghost,
think of how she will remain
on your face, a shimmer a more holy
than mere resemblance, a holiness
made tactile with remembrance.
First published in Chicago Quarterly Review, Winter 2017
Good morning--
I have just returned from NC. I spent a week with my friend
after Wildacres. I am now meeting my brothers in Wisconsin to
spread my mother’s ashes. I’ll be in touch when I return.
Blessings,
—Dora Robinson
Afterwards, I imagine the dust
of her life lingering on your fingertips,
wafting up into the sun-filled room
as you type off a quick note,
each mote a touch of her being,
a moment she spent alone
in her rocking chair, remembering.
Her favorite stories were yours.
Binge-drinking while cloistered
at that Chicago convent, blaming
the teargas and not the pain
when you cried during the riots
of ‘68. She told the world about
how you’d outwitted Daley all the way
to Texas only to find yourself
face-to-face with the Devil himself.
Even as a girl, you asked her impossible
questions about God and good
and giddiness, about the differences
between right and righteousness.
Her quiet smiles were her most honest
answers. You’ve left some of her
unfinished prayers on the laptop keys,
her being in touch. When the next
person sits there to write—perhaps
it will be one of your brothers,
or an old friend still alive in Wisconsin--
he will feel her papery skin there,
think of the way her cheeks glowed
in winter. If when your plane touches
down in Austin, the place feels
unfamiliar, and you finger away a tear
rising up from the past like a ghost,
think of how she will remain
on your face, a shimmer a more holy
than mere resemblance, a holiness
made tactile with remembrance.
First published in Chicago Quarterly Review, Winter 2017