At the literary luncheon for the old poet
\nin lace, her gray-haired daughter is still
\nhurt by her mother’s attachment
\nto the book. When the daughter
\nasked what was for supper as a girl,
\nshe tells the others, her mother
\nwent on typing up the manuscript
\nwhile reciting with a smile a tiny,
\nironic poem: “Air soup and wind
\npudding.” The poet refuses to believe it
\nand denies chasing her daughter
\nall over the house with a shoe brush
\nfor neglecting to mail the finished
\nmanuscript at the post office.
\nFor what mother would make such a cruel
\nchoice between her two children?<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
At the end, when he wore
\nthe address and photograph
\nof his own house around his neck,
\nhis wife and son always
\nknew where to find him:
\nat the town grocery, inviting
\nthe women who came in
\nto dance. After a lifetime
\nof going to his upstairs study
\nto write the poems critics praised
\nfor pushing feeling away
\ninto his carefully assigned ellipses
\nand margins, he couldn’t stop
\nreaching for this rhythm
\nof the body, this joyful embrace.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
After he told his friends in sadness
\nthe poetry had stopped, he discovered
\non his computer the beautiful poems
\nhe once abandoned, staying up
\nfor a whole night in the excitement
\nof finishing them. This was the way
\nhe began again, learning through his own
\nfailures how the despair of giving up
\ncan open the heart to poetry.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
At the public celebration of his birthday,
\nhe waved to his audience
\nfrom the stage, modest and fragile.
\nIn his email to a friend he was the old
\nwarrior: “Fuck 87! All month
\nthe writing has been going to crap.”<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Shocked by her exhaustion
\nas she suddenly turned and fell
\nstraight down on the bed
\nin her writing room, I missed
\nuntil this moment the whole show:
\nher impatience with her body’s
\nslow walk toward the desk
\nto show me her new book,
\nthe pure determination of her hard
\nfist as she lifted herself over
\nand over on her cane until
\nat last she held the collection,
\nforgetting in her smile of triumph
\nher old bones and all the failed
\ndrafts of her struggle to place it
\nin my hands. And then she fell.\n
Follow McNair’s thinking about this poem through his revisions of it. (Line changes are highlighted in yellow; revised line breaks are indicated by yellow verticals.)<\/span><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t\t