Weekly 5-10 minute writing prompts from feather anchor adages.
21.12.10
WK.12 - Family Portrait. | 10min. Go!
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I gaze into her eyes from across the room. Those deep blue eyes that pierce to the center of your soul. Her poise, her style, the confidence rolling off her in waves, I am mesmerized. She is beautiful but something is off. There seems to be something else lurking underneath but I can’t tell quite what it is from looking at her.
My attention wanders to those around her. Maybe someone else can see it too. Her happy peaceful family around her, they are oblivious to her. It’s not that they don’t know she’s there, it’s just that they don’t know who she really is. You can tell they don’t really know her but she doesn’t seem to mind. You see, it’s better that way.
The year is 1994. I am 21 years old in that time. I gaze back to see the past and the secrets the portrait holds. It won’t give them up. Only I know what was really going on inside the me that lived back then. I see that time has not given up the secrets I held.
the red door opens the broken latch pushes back and thumb cries to be looked at. it is blue. the blue that blankets the air at night when father turns on all the lights and is looking for his lighter, he thinks we hid it from him again. He pushes our mattress upwards, with our bodies still on them, his god- dammits are growing louder and mother locks herself in the bathroom because the chinese has taught her this, there she pulls at her fingers, a guilt massage, accupressure and prayer, sister does not move face still pressed in the carpet, safety in white comforter, she closes her eyes and keeps on sleeping, little brother is whimpering, I am not old enough to be by his side. Father's fist is punching the walls punching the mattress, punching christmas in the face and summer is preheating inside our hearts. Family portrait is the red latch, the blue thumb, the white paint coating the walls as if it never happened.
My family are the leaves blown from November. All the varieties of fall colors, blown across prairies, blown out to sea. I know I have pictures of them, thousands of them waiting for the dawn of photography. Wearing starch and wool and bleach and pince nez. They are babies who died of scarlet fever and influenza. I rake them up when they become troublesome, want to call my name in the dark, ask me to call them Daddy or Aunt Lulu. They stand under the street light in the blue dawn to see if I’ll wake, turn on a light to give them a sign I feel them in the shadows beyond the trees of the December avenue. As if they await only this one last leaf to embrace gravity and all the laws of science that want order, before the moldering, the final breaking down.
All my relatives are there at the Hollywood Antique Mall, the almost life-sized Indian, his draggled feathers and yarn. The babe
from 1943, short shorts, white shirt tied beneath her breasts. Of course she’s leaning back against a pickup truck, every girl
from every cornbelt town in America sent this photo of themselves to some boy growing up fast in Europe or the Pacific.
Here’s my kerchief-headed grandma with a mess of fish, salmon or steelhead, almost too heavy for her to hold up for the camera.
I’m not sure what to make of this room full of babies, their chipped bisque heads, their missing fingers and droopy eyes,
but the glass-fronted hutch filled with ashtrays, well, that’s certainly ours, the set of three green porcelain swans, the heavy glass bowls tough enough
for my father’s pipes, and the small metal dishes with sandbagged bottoms, so you could take them in the car and they wouldn’t tip over
onto the upholstery. Ashtrays in the shape of your deepest desires – bowling pins, footballs, sports cars. We had them all, and still the rug
was scorched and the coffee table notched with burns. We believed in cigarettes, my family, like some believed in Jesus.
The twins are six foot four, identical and uniformed. They stand behind me. We are all in front of the rhodendron and camelia bushes. They have just returned from their base in Cheyenne. I have returned from second grade. Mother, the bully in the family, has determined that tomorrow the twins will accompany me to school because I don't have a father to show off. It all seems a bit awkward. They are big bumbling men ordered around by their bossy sister. In Air Force blue with brass buttons they hover at the school room door. In lavender plaid and white lace I escort them inside, across the deep red linoleum with its high gloss shine. And what are we all supposed to do? All I know is that twelve feet eight inches of uncles never can equal one five foot eleven father. The numbers don't add up in arithmetic rhythm. A big hole is the substraction, the perfume of death on a rose-colored sofa. But we all smile in our best proud fashion and act like we are not awkward but a true family, the kind of family that sticks together and doesn't tell about molestation by cousins or the suspected exaggerations of little girls. This is how we show love. "You were too young to remember," is what the mother boss told me later, the same boss I told when it happened and I got into trouble for telling.
"That one was taken back in 1952, right before we moved back the the states". The photos was yellowed, crisp but so beautiful that my heart broke. A family so full of joy standing in front of their little French home. The home they were about to leave forever. A photo taken just before tragedy struck and everything in their worlds changed. And, yet, it was a photo of perseverance. Telling the past, the present and the future all at once. I don't know if she could remember all of the things that picture stood for. She was slipping further away with each passing day. But looking at it in that moment I could see that she was remembering the joy that the moment the photo was taken had held.
6 comments:
I gaze into her eyes from across the room. Those deep blue eyes that pierce to the center of your soul. Her poise, her style, the confidence rolling off her in waves, I am mesmerized. She is beautiful but something is off. There seems to be something else lurking underneath but I can’t tell quite what it is from looking at her.
My attention wanders to those around her. Maybe someone else can see it too. Her happy peaceful family around her, they are oblivious to her. It’s not that they don’t know she’s there, it’s just that they don’t know who she really is. You can tell they don’t really know her but she doesn’t seem to mind. You see, it’s better that way.
The year is 1994. I am 21 years old in that time. I gaze back to see the past and the secrets the portrait holds. It won’t give them up. Only I know what was really going on inside the me that lived back then. I see that time has not given up the secrets I held.
It is better they still don’t know.
the red door opens
the broken latch
pushes back and
thumb cries to be
looked at. it is blue.
the blue that blankets
the air at night when
father turns on all
the lights and is looking
for his lighter, he thinks
we hid it from him again.
He pushes our mattress
upwards, with our bodies
still on them, his god-
dammits are growing
louder and mother locks
herself in the bathroom
because the chinese has
taught her this, there she
pulls at her fingers, a guilt
massage, accupressure and
prayer, sister does not move
face still pressed in the carpet,
safety in white comforter, she
closes her eyes and keeps on
sleeping, little brother is whimpering,
I am not old enough to be by his side.
Father's fist is punching the walls
punching the mattress, punching
christmas in the face and summer
is preheating inside our hearts.
Family portrait is the red latch,
the blue thumb, the white paint
coating the walls as if it never
happened.
My family are the leaves blown from November.
All the varieties of fall colors, blown across prairies,
blown out to sea.
I know I have pictures of them, thousands of them
waiting for the dawn of photography.
Wearing starch and wool and bleach and pince nez.
They are babies who died of scarlet fever and influenza.
I rake them up when they become troublesome,
want to call my name in the dark,
ask me to call them Daddy or Aunt Lulu.
They stand under the street light in the blue dawn
to see if I’ll wake, turn on a light
to give them a sign I feel them in the shadows
beyond the trees of the December avenue.
As if they await only
this one last leaf to embrace gravity
and all the laws of science that want order,
before the moldering, the final breaking down.
Family Portrait
All my relatives are there at the Hollywood
Antique Mall, the almost life-sized Indian,
his draggled feathers and yarn. The babe
from 1943, short shorts, white shirt tied
beneath her breasts. Of course she’s leaning
back against a pickup truck, every girl
from every cornbelt town in America
sent this photo of themselves to some boy
growing up fast in Europe or the Pacific.
Here’s my kerchief-headed grandma
with a mess of fish, salmon or steelhead,
almost too heavy for her to hold up for the camera.
I’m not sure what to make of this room
full of babies, their chipped bisque heads,
their missing fingers and droopy eyes,
but the glass-fronted hutch filled with ashtrays,
well, that’s certainly ours, the set of three green porcelain
swans, the heavy glass bowls tough enough
for my father’s pipes, and the small metal dishes
with sandbagged bottoms, so you could take
them in the car and they wouldn’t tip over
onto the upholstery. Ashtrays in the shape
of your deepest desires – bowling pins, footballs,
sports cars. We had them all, and still the rug
was scorched and the coffee table notched
with burns. We believed in cigarettes,
my family, like some believed in Jesus.
The twins are six foot four, identical and uniformed. They stand behind me. We are all in front of the rhodendron and camelia bushes. They have just returned from their base in Cheyenne. I have returned from second grade. Mother, the bully in the family, has determined that tomorrow the twins will accompany me to school because I don't have a father to show off. It all seems a bit awkward. They are big bumbling men ordered around by their bossy sister. In Air Force blue with brass buttons they hover at the school room door. In lavender plaid and white lace I escort them inside, across the deep red linoleum with its high gloss shine. And what are we all supposed to do? All I know is that twelve feet eight inches of uncles never can equal one five foot eleven father. The numbers don't add up in arithmetic rhythm. A big hole is the substraction, the perfume of death on a rose-colored sofa. But we all smile in our best proud fashion and act like we are not awkward but a true family, the kind of family that sticks together and doesn't tell about molestation by cousins or the suspected exaggerations of little girls. This is how we show love. "You were too young to remember," is what the mother boss told me later, the same boss I told when it happened and I got into trouble for telling.
"That one was taken back in 1952, right before we moved back the the states". The photos was yellowed, crisp but so beautiful that my heart broke. A family so full of joy standing in front of their little French home. The home they were about to leave forever.
A photo taken just before tragedy struck and everything in their worlds changed. And, yet, it was a photo of perseverance. Telling the past, the present and the future all at once.
I don't know if she could remember all of the things that picture stood for. She was slipping further away with each passing day. But looking at it in that moment I could see that she was remembering the joy that the moment the photo was taken had held.
Post a Comment