Celebrity, Variation on "Variation on the Word Sleep," In Preparation & Father's Day.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Celebrity
Sitting here, my peripheral vision decreases,
I feel important as eyes are forced to
to gaze toward the back of my head.
Up here, I see things more,
I’ve got a better seat in the house.
The girl’s hair is blacker,
her skin glows more,
I can hear the inconstant validity of her sniffling
in austere surround sound.
My perception is greater –
loose pipes spilling out clear and soluble water
in a cylindrical, constant stream.
I remember it smelt like chemicals in that room,
years of studying the mystery of the periodic table
was baked and seasoned in,
back and forth.
Those two were the celebrities,
whom I gazed at all through the year.
In the winter I dissociated into the weaves of their J. Crew sweaters,
I watched her tight ponytail bobbing up and down in
the curve of her back,
as the snow fell.
And it was perfect,
her mediocre-sized bra strap peeked out
with just the perfect tinge of conspicuousness.
And then, one dewy spring day,
I was surprised.
From below the rich chestnut locks of her tightly bound hair,
led a naïve path down to the collar of her shirt,
white, starched, and perfect as it was.
Scattered on that path, like invisible rocks on a dirt road,
sprouted the familiar sight of
a cluster of pink, newly formed,
round pimples.
Variation on “Variation of the Word Sleep”
Inspired by Margaret Atwood
My wish would be to sleep with you.
Not to sleep
with you,
like man sleeps with woman,
this talk of sleep yielding the uncanny
movements and hushed words whispered between
blankets and warm bodies, but
I’d like to sleep
with you. Near you.
In your apartment.
To have it be late.
For us to be alone, at first;
then to have your companion arrive,
the knight in shining armor returning
from his magic kingdom of rehearsal space,
to greet you.
And I will slide down,
assume my position,
the one I was granted at birth as the
only, the third, the fifth, the watcher –
I’ll bend into my desk chair behind
the paper-clipped stacks of content couples.
I’d like to lie near you, touching –
for us to talk for long hours,
for your hand to slip over mine ever slightly
when our mutual passions surface in conversation.
And I’d like for you to
watch me,
sleeping.
To witness this drowsiness as it overcomes my senses,
and unties the knot of practicality inherent in holy children.
I’d like you to relax, to sedate your neuroses.
Or if relaxation is not feasible, to
allow me the pleasure of closing my eyes on your couch,
your perfume filling up the place alongside your disobedient love for him.
And I’d like to watch you, with him,
as I begin to sleep,
subtle touches held by backward glances and
restraint.
I’d love to go to sleep here, in this peaceful
place, and wake up in my life that is
independent
as I wish it to be.
Until my mothers pocketbook,
her secret, newfound cornucopia,
reminds her of the yearn to shop with me,
and guide me
To play the obstructive, unending, irresistible game
that these two adults now play,
covering the loneliness of her quiescent breast, knotted shoulders, and back
which cry out to be touched by the one she begot.
In Preparation
When my mother dies,
I feel that somehow I’ll know
exactly what to do.
Not because she’s explained what
her funeral must entail for most of
my lifetime,
or because I attended my Grandfather’s
open – casket wake at the newborn
age of eight.
I suppose it could be some
sort of control issue.
I am sure that we will be sitting
in a hospital room in some far away
town or city filled with new smells
and an unfamiliar landscape.
Upon entering, I’ll take off
your socks first,
one by one,
and begin to wash your feet,
so you’ll know that it’s me.
I’ll clean the grime visible
only to me that the nurses
irresponsibly let collect
between your toes.
You’ll feel the refreshing
cool of alcohol as I remove
the polish remaining on your
toes from my last weekly
pedicure to you; I’ll know
you want to go purely.
Your clothes will be next –
against all orders of nurses
and staff
and your own mother
and husband —
I’ll lift your graceful,
cat – like back up off the pillow,
gently, like you’ve always taught
and wanted me to be,
and untie your gown,
lifting it away like wrapping paper
and quietly crushing it under the table.
Your breasts stare at me,
like two concealed souls trapped
inside some pool - some other planet’s pool -
your loose skin’s surface rippling with
your every breath, the life hanging on in them,
afraid to spill out over the edges and be gone;
I’ll wash them and your neck with warm water.
It amazes me how these bittersweet tables have turned, you look at me with grateful eyes
– we are so much more than mother and child,
Madonna and child,
woman and woman,
we are like the two last puppies of a litter left
in the whelping box, anticipating where the
other craves warm, real touch.
So, I take out the tiger balm because
it smells like our old house.
I rub it under your toes,
untying the knots you’ve always battled
that are reflective of your weak sinus cavities.
Everyone has left the room -
cats escape my black bag of tricks,
they are all around you, like the old days.
I apply them to you like a midwife
does leeches, curling about your
neck and defeated chest,
looking like they will transform into stone
and become part of your neo-Rasta sepulcher here.
They say you come into this world and out of it
alone, but we’ve been napping in the sun together
since I was a part of your womb.
In you.
I will always be there,
the cats, the dog and me,
and the music
I’ve turned on
loud and tribal,
the reggae cadence
to which I was
conceived.
We walk you down this
aisle in time,
we are your overdue army,
only one will take you.
Father’s Day
I always wondered how I
would feel on this day after
you were gone.
Your death left me in the
broad category of daughters
who experience this day with
a deceased father.
I wondered, would it be easier
now to encapsulate your life
and tuck it away neatly and say simply,
“my father is deceased,”
relieved that I no longer
have to explain your choices,
and our past?
For years, I knew that the day
you were no longer with us
would provide me with a
sense of relief from the worry
and anxiety that our relationship
caused for all these years.
I had hoped for any sort of closure,
a welcome release of the silent albatross
that I wore daily around my neck.
I watched your memorial service online
and wondered if there would be
any mention of me.
Then, I saw this picture of us appear
on the screen, one that you must
have kept for all these years.
In it, I am sitting on your knee, and you are
holding a borrowed camcorder,
the one you intrinsically knew how to use,
our shared familial duty.
Your eulogy included a simple statement
saying that you “had a daughter.”
Nothing more, and nothing less.
Clearly, you and your family used
the same strategy of encapsulating
our relationship that I attempted.
But, there are memories.
Some come to me in between
thoughts during the day,
memories that I haven’t thought
of in over twenty years,
maybe even longer.
They feel like unexpected
electrical zaps that can
jolt me from my deepest focus,
the adrenaline rush that comes
with suddenly swerving out of your
lane as you drive.
Others make me feel like
I’m surfing a huge wave,
the memory harnessing itself
to all the power of the ocean,
making the emotion
swell and swell
while I hold on and radically
accept the churning water.
And just like that, it’s over.
Grief is an ongoing process,
and it is never truly over.
It is why Leopold Bloom’s statement,
“Me. And me now”
still brings readers to their knees,
over a hundred years after it was written.
In Laurie Anderson’s masterpiece
Heart of a Dog, she says,
“But finally I saw it, the connection
between love and death,
and that the purpose of death
is the release of love.”
I love you, dad.
Somehow, I feel your presence deep
in my bones, like the genes that you
gave me are somehow annotated by your spirit.
You are a part of me, on a cellular level,
and I wouldn’t trade you for any other.
Katharine Chung is a New York transplant who currently resides in Connecticut. An Assistant Director in an urban public library by day, she enjoys stand-up paddle boarding with her dog, night photography, and movies in her free time. Her poetry has previously been published in Italics Mine. Find her on Instagram @vegancinephile.
