Two summers after he died, it began.
She had coffee with a man
from the other side of the tracks:
he’d been in the navy, worked on the line
at the auto plant.
We hated his hick talk:
“So I says to her, I says …”
He’d never read a book!
Now she’d pay for raising snobs.
My sister was still young enough to cry,
to slam her bedroom door
and rage for the ironical ghost of our father.
Poor Mother.
We didn’t make it easy for her.
She couldn’t spend a night away:
had to share her car with teenagers
and cook our dinner, too; hide in Father’s den
to use the phone. Wonder what she whispered there:
was it love, or some other kind of care?
They planted a garden at his place,
baked loaves of bread, watched TV,
Did everything but
move in together.
And marry: she wouldn’t have him.
Was it because we wouldn’t let her?
In any case he cheated on her, and she
(just as we’d said) deserved better.