Sit-Down Dinner
Oct 21 2014


Dishes drip-dry
in the wire rack
on the counter beside the sink.
October sun, angling-in
glints off shiny porcelain

stainless steel implements
the big ceramic mug.

A still life
on household virtue, domestic bliss.

Except
for the shattered plate
that might have slipped,
the hurled glass
in broken bits.
And the heavy 10-inch chef's knife

that’s gone missing,
its German steel, and razor edge
and latent fingerprints.

Tomorrow, the dishes will be put away
in their pre-appointed places,
the floor conscientiously swept.

And the empty rack
will serenely wait
for the next family dinner.

                        ~~~~~~~

I read this poem in this week's New Yorker (Oct 27 2014):

SNOW IN YOUR SHOES
BY ANA RISTOVIĆ


Cutlery does not a home make

though an extra spoon

comes in handy.



New curtains do not a home make

though some windows

are best covered.



For a home to be a home,

you need many items

you’d rather have discarded.



What Eskimos advise:

build a sturdy igloo with

snow in your shoes;



the safety pin, forgotten

in the coat collar,

at your jugular.



(Translated, from the Serbian, by Steven and Maja Teref.)


On first reading, I got pre-occupied with the beginning; then lost focus, and skimmed through to the end. Now, in retrospect, I see how I've substantially recapitulated her work, with a similar sinister turn. So, in my defence, I really didn't intend to so nearly plagiarize!

(And also now -- after several re-readings, and slow as I am to figure things out -- I've come to appreciate just how much better her poem is, with its economy and naïve obliqueness and the power of that final word: why she's in the New Yorker, not me. I'm still not completely thrilled, though, because the shocker that ends it strikes me as a bit of a cheat: the only foreshadowing of something off-kilter is "snow in your shoes", so the final sensational stanza seems to come too suddenly, leaving me feeling I've been sucker-punched. ...On the other hand, maybe this is exactly why the New Yorker editors thought it was so good! (Especially since it holds up in translation, which is hard on poetry.) Unlike me, the magazine's poetry editor realizes that good poets don't under-estimate the reader, or feel the need to take her by the hand; which is my great failing. The most powerful poetry doesn't feel the need to spell it out.)

Anyway, I began with the simplest idea possible: a poem about kitchen implements. I thought a quiet poem of close observation about cutlery might go somewhere -- some nice inanimate object like a spoon. There is something about a spoon that makes it the most inoffensive and domestic thing in creation. When I read "cutlery" in Ristovic's piece, I would have pictured spoons, even if she hadn't gone on to mention one. (Actually, I already wrote that poem awhile ago, a sweet piece about nesting spoons.) When it came to thinking about my favourite utensil, though, I immediately thought of my big Henckels chef's knife, not spoons. And when it comes to knives, you can't avoid the lethal subtext of things that cut and pierce. So the poem took a turn ...

The poem started with the image, and was then quickly carried along by the word play -- something about the sound and precision and even "mouth feel" of those first 3 lines really hooked me, with their alliteration and rhyming "i's" and hard "k's". This conjured up a nice still life, but is essentially boring. So I called it just that -- a still life; which is when "domestic bliss" led me to it's ironic opposite (not to mention the perfect opening for my favourite knife!)

I've also just finished binge-watching this summer's featured offering from HBO, The Leftovers, in which there are a lot of slow reveals about hidden selves and family dysfunction; insights into conflicted inner lives of ambivalence and guilt and suffering. In retrospect, I think that show must have had a subconscious influence on the lives depicted here. (Because it certainly doesn't represent mine!) And how coincidental that it's also October, and that the poem explicitly points this out: the fateful day upon which The Leftovers hinges was Oct 14. ...Not to mention that "leftovers" is the perfect corollary of family dinner!!