In an effort to be this so-called family,
we all go see The Glass Menagerie.
Mom and Dad think a play about people
more confused than us will make us forget.
In the taxi home, Mom says
they’ve hired an art therapist
to help us process everything,
some woman named Ann
Mom knows
from the studio.
As Mom speaks, the taxi driver catches
my eye in the rearview mirror.
Pretends he didn’t.
I think about the play,
how Laura forgives Jim for breaking the horn
off her tiny glass unicorn,
then gives the hornless unicorn to him,
a symbol of how he
broke her.
I rub my forehead with my cut hand,
catching again the stranger’s eyes in the mirror.
Silence strangles all of us, as we fly past
Shakespeare & Company, H&H Bagels,
veer down West End,
spin the corner,
land right smack on Riverside.
We get out of the cab, Dad never saying a word
about Tom, Laura, the unicorn.
Usually he would’ve lectured us
on themes, metaphors, symbols.
Now, we’re all silent—
evidence left behind
at the scene of a crime,
lying motionless on an empty stage.