365: Late 1950s, Lassie barks for help through the darkness. The T.V. picture has gone kaput. My father says “I’ll teach you to fix it” and removes the back to reveal a landscape of small tubes. He plucks out several and drops them into a paper bag. We drive to the drug store where, hidden in a back corner, is a scientific-looking object the size of a vending machine.
He instructs me how to plug the tubes in—one at a time, matching the slots with the numbers on the tube—and watch as the gauge points red or green. It reminds me of a game on the boardwalk.
He sets aside the only tube that turned the gauge red, and finds its match in the cabinet. Home, he re-plugs all the tubes except for the new one, which he lets me do. Lassie comes home!
366: The ancient writer, told he has hours to live, asks his doctor to bring him his books, and he starts paging through them. “Why didn’t you ask for your wife?” “I’ll have eternity with her in heaven. These are going straight to hell.”
367: Now, while the time since your death is still counted in weeks, I’ll be walking along and there, just beyond the ability of my eyes to distinguish faces, I’ll see someone who looks like you, and for a few milliseconds my brain will form your face. At first it was a little unnerving, but I’ve come to look forward to and treasure those milliseconds, and I will mourn them when they are gone.
368: The houseguest opens the refrigerator, smiles, and says, “Someone brought home baked goods from Entenmann’s.”
369: “Garçon, un bock! I write to please myself, just as I order my dinner…” [George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man]. I don’t need the menu, just bring me whatever looks good today.
370: My mother’s critique: “Received your article to-day and for a routine write-up, you sure made it into interesting reading.”
371: The evil that men do lives long after them, along with automatic renewals.
372: The only priest in the remote village announces he will be moving to a faraway parish in a week. A run on Confessions, future absolutions granted; pray now, sin later. Hail Marys peal from every corner, alley, barroom, bedroom. After the priest departs, it is holy sanctioned hell on earth. Except for a pious few, who eventually set off to find the Garden of Eden and scrounge for seeds.
"The evil that men do lives after them, along with automatic renewals." How true. And of course your mother was right.
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | January 18, 2020 at 01:39 PM