This poem about depression is part of my collection that explores psychological disorders. It begins by jumping off a line from Michael Burkard’s “Notes About My Face” which goes, “The rain helped the silent father understand his silence again.”
In the Early Afternoon Before Company Arrives
The rain helped the silent father understand his silence
when so rushing it was
dark and round, the rain was mint leaves.
Warm fruit tarts sit on the coffee table, crumbling
Phone call in the afternoon, when no one goes outside,
when the music disc spins and groans to be spinning
with no sound but the sound of thin threads
and the sky is the color of salt.
In the doorway, the room turns slowly
he opens the phone and it says to stay alone
so he watches
from the small room,
through the window to see
the hedge is glowing wet.
The water is a low sound,
the same words,
the winter is long and webbed.
White wine that sits and sticks
the silent father in the doorway with a glass and a phone.
On the coffee table the wineglass
full of rain
of white rain that falls in gulleys, stony and sullen.
The wineglass holds
the ticking,
holds the creaking,
the dripping.
His daughter watches and says to him,
we are the same words,
when that word is alone.
Her phone call in the wide afternoon,
rain is spattering the house: his face.
The river in the sidewalk, the river that creaks
on either side of the street
is creaking. Phone and face held,
heaviness held open
between two walls,
where the rain falls,
and breaches.
It has crept on the roof
until the room went silent and listened.
In the Early Afternoon Before Company Arrives
The rain helped the silent father understand his silence again
-Michael Burkard, from “Notes About My Face”
The rain helped the silent father understand his silence
when so rushing it was
dark and round, the rain was mint leaves.
Warm fruit tarts sit on the coffee table, crumbling.
Phone call in the afternoon, when no one goes outside,
when the music disc spins and groans to be spinning
with no sound but the sound of thin threads
and the sky is the color of salt.
In the doorway, the room turns slowly
he opens the phone and it says to stay alone
so he watches
from the small room,
through the window to see
the hedge is glowing wet.
The water is a low sound,
the same words,
the winter is long and webbed.
White wine that sits and sticks
the silent father in the doorway with a glass and a phone.
On the coffee table the wineglass
full of rain
of white rain that falls in gulleys, stony and sullen.
The wineglass holds
the ticking,
holds the creaking,
the dripping.
His daughter watches and says to him,
we are the same words,
when that word is alone.
Her phone call in the wide afternoon,
rain is spattering the house: his face.
The river in the sidewalk, the river that creaks
on either side of the street
is creaking. Phone and face held,
heaviness held open
between two walls,
where the rain falls,
and breaches.
It has crept on the roof
until the room went silent and listened.