In My Sister's House

I suppose there's a thing
to say about visiting
someone you used to live with,
which is what I get to do
these days, pets and all
("and all" soon to mean baby).

Some of what to say
might mean that
I still don't know
what to think,
because so many things
were happening,
and happened, during
the three years
we spent reconnecting
that it will take
a number of years still
before I have a real
understanding.

Family life is always
difficult, in some way,
but it can be still more
intimidating when yours
has as many complications,
none obvious, as I have
experienced in mine.

So when I visit
in my sister's house,
it's exactly what it seems,
and nothing like it.

***

The thing about
the brothers Liam and Noel
is that they’ve grown up
in the hazy period
after rock reached
past the crib, became
a part of the generation.
Everyone says they
do nothing but
their own cribbing,
but to watch them
and see as they are,
you know it’s just
what they are,
as much caught in the stream
as musicians of the first order.

It might also have been said
that Brando held
“a disdain for Hollywood’s
creative decline” and that
he might’ve
“chosen to set a good example.”
The surprise, dear writer,
even if he didn’t know it himself,
was that there was no decline,
that all the weight he had
assumed for the industry
in its early years
he not so symbolically
returned to himself,
like an Orson Welles
or Bill Shatner. He
never lost his edge, in fact
never stopped rebelling.

That was his real magic.

***

Only immigrants understand,
seem to truly understand, the need
for community. The rest of us
fend for ourselves.

It occurs to me
that true suffering
is in the impulse
to retain
what must no longer
be retained,
that we bring upon ourselves
all our sorrows
when we fail
to recognize
that all things
must fade
in the inexorable
march of time.

It’s not so much
a thing of progress,
for many great things
are never seen,
much less embraced,
and far too much evil
is institutionalized,
where we only thought
we placed the delinquents
(what a joke that is!),
but a simple matter
of age, whether
our own or
the collected effort
that keeps us all
from falling feral
to the ground.

We still pretend
humanity is better
than other animals.
That’s another good joke.
Me, I’ve never liked fish,
and it was recently,
which I say as no vegetarian,
that I vocalized for myself
the reason why:

It’s bad enough we eat
things that resemble us,
why stoop lower?

***

In my sister’s house,
things are simple
and difficult to comprehend,
a matter of family
and the individuals
who comprise it.
Of course I love her,
and cherish what
bonds no speculation
can shatter, but
family is not
the final word of
a sentence,
at least not this one.

We still can’t agree
on movies, but the last time
she (sort of) compromised,
I think that’s when she found out
she was pregnant.
I consider that
some kind of miracle.