Who Knew

Parents are parables.
Histories below histories in
Reference shelves in scattery sea basements
Searching for our attention that's
Slipping quiet like culprits through a midnight window
When their chronological memory attempts a break through:
Dad: "It was Tuesday after Labor Day, and -"
Mom: "No it wasn't. It wasn't! How, when I was wearing those white heels?"

Those white heels?
Just like that snow storm that year
And that damn garage cat
And that wooden cottage dock
And that summer when the bee swarm "nearly killed ev'ry last one of us."

They take us there,
Raise us in those phantom hills and dusty toolboxes -
Every time,
Every single time,
Pulling out that rusty wrench:
"The best two fifty I ever spent, I tell ya."
You do, you tell me.
Then you tell me why
Quantity doesn't always equal quality.
And: "Say whatcha want, but Detroit knew how to make two things: cars and steel."
And without fail, those
Corner dime stores and the frying pan with a big head dent
Appear and reappear like shadow friends.

Then, of course, who could miss that heavy wood table right smack there
A lumbering living room idol giantly embarrassed and severely crowded,
Loyal like an antique dog waiting for a time that will never return.
(It would cross its legs and pee, if it could, I swear).
Why they need a four-by-seven oak slab memory instead of
Snapping a few pixels of the thing, well,
Only the table can tell.
Or they can.
But they won't; At least,
Not all the way.

Instead, they raise us as
Skipping stones, those in the
Creek behind their old movie theater
Trickling soft as years in ghost towns
Adorned with adventurous novel characters,
Names we almost love -
But not quite,
Because they talk about them
Like they breathed.
Some - frightening,
Most - beautiful.

In certain night moments at our bedside
Or on the July back porch, broken swing and all
It almost looks
As if they could cry
Pour out a life they've built and torn down.
But out comes lesson, prevailing like wind over rain
And we get instead
The story end, like children small and grown
Sitting around their sunset radio boxes, tuning into worn static.

Then, imperceptibly at once
Comes the time,
All different times for all different sorts of us
When our parents transform into more than just
Warm ovens baking
Broken doors fixed
Terrycloth robes and
Red pick up trucks.

More than
Heavy doors slamming
Cheap vanilla perfume
Friday night sewing needles
Bowling beer leagues and
Quiet thinking dinner tables.

More than words cried out
And words taken back.

They become

Hands
Raised above them like tiny questions
Waiting to be held,
Searching for love of all kinds.

Looking eyes
Witnessing whole years
Only their attics can keep
A silent plane ride home to
bury a child
And lake nights filled with nothing but
Dreams of each other. And

Still more, and more,
And more.

October drizzling rain upon their
Jumping feet and pounding pavement
Block by neighborhood block
Chasing away times they won't soon remember.

And that night burst of ocean, when
They saw for the very first time
Their worlds float together on a vanishing orange horizon
Sand beneath them
Mountain wind erasing
Footprints, as if
They had never stepped into that moment on earth
Or given away to tides so much more
Than their sea lungs could carry,
Like untold ocean beds and rock walls
Holding everything down and in
Water of their life, and ours,
Seeping through the bones.

"That's why you need to get flood insurance" they quibble, ankle deep
In our own regret
As we bucket out track trophies, a panoramic photo of an eighth grade D.C. trip,
And yearbook upon yearbook we've inherited as gifts
"From our basement to yours!" they exclaimed on our doorstep three years ago, laughing,
The funny intersecting exchange where histories meet like old friends swapping memories,
Forgetting they once
Lived together.

"What's this?" ask our sons and daughters
Smiling and quizzical like mini riddle detectives
Solving mysteries with their bare hands grabbing
For anything
Those fake Mardi Gras beads and
A soppy box of post cards from Germany,
Unusable dinar covered by an unrecognizable face, and
Decade-old cd sleeves.
Fossil evidence. They need more.

So with a wet wave to Grandma and Grandpa,
Excited, they plop like cushions,
Square between tired laps.
And around that basement table
Generations in a mirror
Children around golden children,
Awash in wet boxes and thoughtfully familiar relics,
They listen intently, as if around night fire,
To animated stories, big like oak,
straight from the dusty sea bottom,
Of parents who
Long ago,
Lived.