Sample Poems by Catherine Morocco

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Inheritance


As she clicks forks into the drawer, Mother's tone is the same
as if annoyed by the lack of fish sticks at Piggly Wiggly--
"My mother died last night." The same flat voice
she used in saying that when she was eight her father died
sitting up in the train from the sanatorium. "In the station,
men lifted him into a box to avoid contagion." Dead,
after moving from Minnesota to Idaho for his health.
At dinner, we chat of chickadees and hosiery I need,
no further mention of Mother's news. I wonder if she cried
when she was eight for her father, or at the prospect of leaving
her piano and friends behind. Did my grandmother
hand her daughter a tiny bottle like my mother gave me,
telling me to put my tears inside--then leave her wondering
how to put both eyes to the opening at once?

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Deadwood

I practice driving on the road to Deadwood,
Mother sleeping with our quiet baby, Peter elbowing Judy.

Father nodding next to me, oblivious to all. He minds
only if a child's appendix bursts--then he stops noodling Kant.

I'm fine to pass this eighteen-wheeler--
two stories, four tractors, two combines strapped inside.

I drive right beside it, like a mutt trots by its master,
when something flying in the other lane grows larger--

it aims for us, I want to sprint like greyhounds
at Sioux City track, except my foot droops like a hurt paw.

I flash on the car I once saw squashed onto a semi
beside the highway, flat like a moth dried there--

now our oblivion has two headlights--father's foot slams
my driving foot out the starting gate--we leap past two-four-

seven sets of whirling giant tires. Thrusting an arm across me,
Father cranks the steering wheel until I see a head in a cab

in the rear view mirror. I can't hear over pounding in my ears,
but Father is back to sleep, his face at peace.

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Tiny People in Your Peas

Damn, I'd hammer these in a paper bag,
empty the splinters on piles of glass

and tractor parts out at the dump, except--
you children relish seeing tiny people

in your peas and scraping gravy off
venerable towers and trees.

And your father likes bearing his roasted teals
in triumph on the Wedgewood china,

each building, each gothic arch
celebrating his Yale clan--your father's

silent rebuke to his mother, always dubious
of her gentler son. How he endured that raven's

endless cawing, "You will amount to something,
Henry, one day"--remains his mystery.

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The Difference Is Butter-Fried Chicken

Our Sunday table is a Ceremony of the Roast.
Thin slices shaved with Grandfather's carving knife,

Laid out on Father's blue and white Yale plates.
It's broccoli on bridges and bell towers.

The only crispy thing is string. My dad unwinds a tiny
piece for each of us. All eyes on him, until Mother

Lifts her fork. Now let gentle dogs out of the gates
and never clink the china plates.

At Esther's it's a Race for Breasts and Thighs piled
on the table. Little brothers on toes,

T-shirts riding up. You grasp a leg, spearing your teeth
through crispy batter to the juice and tenders.

Turn it in your mouth like sweet corn, gnash down
to the stick. Her mother never sits.

She talks all the while she's forking chicken parts
into and from the sputtering vat.