Thursday, July 29, 2010

from The Handmade Castle

Section 1. (instead of breaking their hands, one after the other, while someone tries to reach for the phone)

Tonight you make up a father, an ordinary, sad one, smarter than anyone realizes, who reads the history of the Quarter Horse over and over again, making pencil marks in the margins, who drives his 80's Toyota slower now, since his left eye got so bad; tonight it is this father who calls you, this father whose smoke-stained voice you hear by the window as pink light leaks from the satellite dishes cupped like ears towards the grimy sky, this father who sounds distracted, who pauses until you say hello again and this father who coughs twice as he tells you about the plane crashing, about the girl he can't remove from the wall.

5 comments:

angela simione said...

christine.... this is gorgeous. absolutely. love it.

Ron. said...

I'm thorughly, un, enjoying(?) this volume, as I have with all. My beloved Sandra thinks I'm "fixated." Fortunately, she's long since come around to recognizing that, since it's my natural state, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

By the way, I referenced you (albeit tangentially) at Scrambled, Not Fried.

LORENZO said...

Loved the line..his smoke stained voice.Images were very sensory.Hope you are well!

Radish King said...

you made me cry

Christine E. Hamm, Poet Professor Painter said...

Thank you so much, everybody -- now you're making me cry!