Two From Short Stories and Love Songs
Pat Steir
Kitchens 1970
My Aunt Beverly came to visit me .
I last saw her twenty-two years ago when I was twelve .
This time she had freshly dyed and set hair .
It was glossy red . short . and neatly curled .
A friend was with her . her friend's hair was dyed blond .
She was tired looking . and not as neat as Beverly .
Aunt Beverly said "this is fran ... do you remember her ?
I know her since before you were born' .
They were boyish sixty-year-old women .
Reminding me of the working women I see
leaving their offices and factories at 5 on winter afternoons .
I suppose it is a hard lonely life they have .
"I have traveled a lot since len died" she said .
"I took a cross-country bus trip .
Funny . she always called him leonard . when I was a child .
when he was alive .
I remember her well . from the old days .
The years when the children were growing up .
Her hair was longer then . and darker . she was thin .
I remember she thought herself a cross between
katharine hepburn and ingrid bergman .
We were all poor .
We lived in four-family wooden-frame buildings .
Railroad flats .
Beverly’s daughters abby and marta were smart — and beautiful .
Her son jeffrey was retarded .
Each summer uncle leonard tried to teach jeffrey to count .
They spent years in the front bedroom . years of summers .
Counting and trying .
I feel those summers often .
a flavor . a taste . a just missed time .
Some days seem pregnant with them .
It is as though a day from long ago
is about to arrive in the midst of a new summer .
Once I was sunbathing on a foreign beach .
and the heat — the sun —the loneliness of a distant
voice brought them back to me .
Aunt Beverly and my mother in the kitchen .
I remember myself a fat child .
Sitting in the shade —at the side of the house .
"The oldest"— "keeping an eye on the smaller children"
My mother's and Beverly's voices
coming through the open kitchen window .
Their voices became part of the air . a hum and a whisper .
words barely audible . the clink of ice .
All summer they drank iced coffee with milk in it .
they sat in their flower-print housedresses .
at the white enamel kitchen table . near the window .
sometimes — but rarely laughing .
endlessly talking about childhood friends . operations .
and abortions . deaths . and money .
while in the hot mud driveway . I watched a red ant .
crawl from shadow to shadow . across the Australian Plains
CONVERSATION 1969
I mourn mortality .
my friend came to visit .
the evening passed .
time wove back and forward again .
we spoke about places .
the room seemed to become other rooms .
i described aroom . a room i never remember .
except when i am in it .
she described a room .
a gift for a gift .
the conversation became a gigantic sculpture .
a transcontinental journey on the queen mary .
something rare .
we wanted to capture it . the event . in a novel .
writing on six pages at once . filming it .
writing poetry of poetry on the walls of it .
painting pictures in non-existent colors .
the memories and the memories of them .
in the morning she told me of a road sprayed with sunshine .
i told about a little horse in mexico . he lived inside a fence
8 feet in diameter . beneath a banana tree .
the girls in the house hung their petticoats
on a line that passed above him .
all the days i was there . i could see him standing .
inside his fence . beside the banana tree .
under the petticoats . with a huge erection .
cows grazed on water lilies in the pond . just beyond him .
only their heads showed . the horse was black .
she said write it .
then we ate lunch .
when my friend got ready to leave i followed her .
through the house .
i watched her go down the stairs .
i ran inside to the window .
i wanted to call to her . but by the time i got the window open .
she was already down the street .
then i phoned another friend .
and ate half a box of "Famous Cookie Assortment" cookies .
in this way i mourned the nature of time . all partings .
and the frail thing that each day is .
I wonder what it will be like when i get home. she had said .