I can almost see her
rolling her eyes, trying to
get her breath, my father
coming behind to do the Heimlich
maneuver in Mrs. Pete’s restaurant,
Mrs. Pete herself—she of the
$4.95 dinner, dessert included—
stepping in to do it right.
Before this, what?
They are talking about the heat,
maybe, the grosbeak
on the feeder, the rusting screens.
How long could that go on?
The menu could take a while.
A missing earring.
This is the way they
spend their lives
in our absence, this and
The Young and the Restless.
“I’m finding out what makes
the young restless,”
he says.
We children and the soaps,
swarming around their chicken
and mashed potatoes
like starved ghosts,
while they behave politely
to each other, God knows,
charity and violence having closed
a little tent at last: the third
thing they’ve refused to speak
of, the limit to everything.
Guess what they do
now? They figure the tip
on a napkin, not one cent
extra for the life they’re in.