POETRY

By Kim­ber­ly Ann Priest

my mother writes in her journal under the heading: How did Grandpa pop the ques­tion? refer­ring to my father’s pro­pos­al, who, of course, is ‘grandpa’ to my chil­dren for whom this journal is written. & her answer seems to be more about my father’s attrib­ut­es than about the pro­pos­al (of which she says nothing at all). & my father’s attrib­ut­es are accom­pa­nied by very clear adden­dums as when a woman is trying to explain the absence of a man’s good qual­i­ties. & since adden­dums of this sort are, oth­er­wise, seldom present in these journal pages that were penned after my mother had three strokes that left her mind and speech thread­less, I am led to believe they demand­ed sharper focus, arising from an unplumbed nar­ra­tive about the nature of my parent’s co-exis­tence, how my mother jus­ti­fied poverty & oppres­sion not yet named oppres­sion: to be voice­less & woman. & how we took vaca­tions into the woods of my father’s youth in Michigan’s Upper Penin­su­la long before he returned us all to live in this place & how it can be as much fun to eat cheap (i.e. fruit bars from that cheap store Walmart), roam nature, swim in the nearest local lake, and visit a church, as it might be to engage high-end activ­i­ties, enjoy expen­sive meals, and stay overnight in a bougie loca­tion; but what did we know of those things? each of us, my sib­lings and I, held the map dic­tat­ing desire and direc­tion in keeping with my mother’s rec­om­men­da­tion in the book to allow each [child] to has input in your trip this make at more fun. & fun, I recall, was part of my child­hood. & child­hood was part of our home. & our home was some­times run by chil­dren: my mother, invari­ably, wanting to take a vaca­tion; my father who doesn’t hear always well but will listen if gets his atten­tion. (make sure he gets message, my mother insists). & my mother says he was faith­ful too, though maybe not always in mind & alert­ness. & how, as example, we would get out of the car, finally, after he had turned down several wrong roads, my mother holding the map and all her chil­dren hot, sticky, sand­wiched togeth­er in the back seat of our baby blue Escort, myself in the hatch­back, window’s down, no air-con­di­tion­ing & we are all begging for food. & my father has not heard (lis­tened) to one word my mother has said to turn right here, not left because he’s from this place and he knows the roads. (be quiet! he says) & we’ve run out of fruit bars & we want to go swimming—my mother includ­ed. we want to go swim­ming! & my father says, when we finally get to the lake that we have one half hour only, rustling us all out of the car (my mother includ­ed) because the motel is still two hours from here and it is now dusk, so we hurry. cheap, my mother writes in the journal next to the word God; we don’t stop to eat until my father is hungry, after my mother has lin­gered fifteen extra minutes in the lake in a skirted one piece, smiling and waving at my father from the deep who is calling her to shore. she doesn’t hear him, my father on the beach wor­ry­ing about good old-fash­ioned time & money. my mother tells her grand­chil­dren: enjoy the simple that in life.

Photo by Louis Watson

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 19. Support local book­sellers and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers by order­ing a print copy of the mag­a­zine.