Day 4—Family Mart Pastoral
From this image @spaceliminalbot
A convenience store, Family Mart, beckoning, fluorescent-bright, photo-shopped at the end of a well-groomed dirt path against a lovely pastoral background… a grove of trees nearly obscures the tall lime-green & white roadside logo sign to the right of the building. Otherworldly, neon against pastel.
I might have predicted we’d remember
differently. Easter down near Athens
with our hippie farmhouse friends.
In rooms that smelled of dried cherries and almond oil
The older girls I admired painted intricate
Eggs in the old world tradition
A ham hung in the smokehouse
Gregorian chant played low on the stereo
And while the father frightened me
I played store upstairs to avoid his
stare and minded the 2 minute shower
rule and rushed to dress for church
We let our hair dry in the VW Bus
with the windows down while the big sisters sang
snippets of what they’d teach later
After Church, after dinner, the little
goblets of rose wine shared all around
the obligatory egg hunt, I wanted nothing more
than the moment teenagers and grownups
pulled out their guitars and fiddles and, shy on the
outskirts of a circle, I hummed harmonies
watched sunlight play on their fingertips
the greening hill and daffodils
re-enforcing the day’s resurrection metaphor
Life, rich and bright all around us
in the Hocking Hills, where most folks
make do with less and do what they want.
My brother and the only other boy in the
family hid in the barn, hunted frogs by the pond
up the way, it turns out, to avoid
So many girls, yes, but also the stern father’s
insistence on calling us by our long-form
Anglican names: Elizabeth, Charles, Catherine
His low, Professorial voice an interrogation
a sneer, an explosion of expletives in
the event of any perceived mis-step
Whatever undercurrent of violence
I may have felt, I put on a shelf as
I chose music and collective revival
In this market of memories, I walk
the path to the field outside, away from
the harsh glare of interior aisles
Charles, or…Chuck as we’ll always call him
unpacks a more ominous basket
of goods (or bads)—and prefers to
keep quiet, lest the wrecking ball
of his memory ruin my reverie
Still, I appreciate his dark reminder.
Family Mart. I might have predicted
we’d remember differently.
Early Morning Poems 