Poetic Divination

“Life’s Work” by Maxine Cumin

Mother my good girl
I remember this old story:
you fresh out of the Conservatory
at eighteen a Bach specialist
in a starched shirtwaist
begging permission to go on tour
with the nimble violinist you were
never to accompany and he
flinging his music down
the rosin from his bow
flaking line by line
like grace notes on the treble clef
and my grandfather
that estimable man I never met
scrubbing your mouth with a handkerchief
saying no daughter of mine
tearing loose the gold locket
you wore with no one’s picture in it
and the whole German house on 15th Street
at righteous whiteheat…

At eighteen I chose to be a swimmer.
My long hair dripped through dinner
onto the china plate.
My fingers wrinkled like Sunsweet
yellow raisins from the afternoon workout.
My mouth chewed but I was doing laps.
I entered the water like a knife.
I was all muscle and seven doors.
A frog on the turning board.
King of the Eels and the Eel’s wife.
I swallowed and prayed
to be allowed to join the Aquacade
and my perfect daddy
who carried you off to elope
after the fingerboard snapped
and the violinist lost his case
my daddy wearing gravy on his face
swore on the carrots and the boiled beef
that I would come to nothing
that I would come to grief…

Well, the firm old fathers are dead
and I didn’t come to grief.
I came to words instead
to tell the little tale that’s left:
the midnights of my childhood still go on.
The stairs speak again under your foot.
The heavy parlor door folds shut
and “Clair de Lune”
puckers from the obedient keys
plain as a schoolroom clock ticking
and what I hear more clearly than Debussy’s
lovesong is the dry aftersound
of your long nails clicking.