Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GIANTS, by JANE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GIANTS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Someone's old parents in the desert on folding chairs
Last Line: To each memory station -- pause, hold, mute, flash.
Subject(s): Abandonment; Lies; Marriage; Quarrels; Secrets; Desertion; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Arguments; Disagreements


Someone's old parents in the desert on folding chairs,
one cradling his face, the other absorbed,

a Jew with blue eyes and a Jew with brown,
and inside, behind a huge plateglass window,

a modern dining area, black and white high-tech kitchen, swivel stools,
a lot of counter space,

and their daughter basting a turkey with orange sauce.
The father has only this morning

confessed his wife's secret -- something he never tells her he knows,
though he assumes she knows

her father -- who would be near 100 now -- never died
when she was two, but abandoned his daughters and wife

and gave Florence and Rachel -- lifted from the Bible -- the gift
of the public trial of early sorrow,

which each wore far from her nature like a boxed jewel
that escapes down the throat and illumines the heart,

as the throbbing of the cosmos is lit
by what preceded it.

The man in the chair, whose leg won't work when he gets up,
has accepted his wife's anger as depression

and forgiven her, turning down the light
like an orchard lamp, low and steady, for fifty years.

I know them, I have bothered to inhabit every maneuver
until they shrivel and I am sky that darkens over

them -- these creatures in the yard, fallen
like lizards into a pool

without water, gesticulating and blinking, wiry, slow,
whom I let slowly go

into a house, settle in front of the console and press the remote
to each memory station -- pause, hold, mute, flash.





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