Today particularly, my father seals up
his camera in a Tupperware bowl
with silica gel to keep it dry.
He wraps large rubber bands cut
from an old inner tube around the bowl.
Aunt Cleone is fixing a bowl of raw oatmeal,
yogurt, and sesame seeds.
She takes a damp undershirt from the refrigerator
and unwraps enough purslane and mint leaves
to grind on her cereal. They are arguing
about sex. My father says women don’t like it.
Cleone tells how she and Uncle Bob
made love every day after swimming, how she
wore him out. My mother takes her toast
to the deck and watches a huge jay land
spread-legged on the rail,
scattering goldfinches away from the feeder.
This is as close to the facts
as I can get. It is a Thursday, 9:20,
after a cold swim. Cleone enters her twenty-third
year without a cold or any other sickness.
My mother has almost succeeded at solitude.
Even the jay is no sorrow to her.