How Many Times
No matter how many times I try I can't stop my father
from walking into my sister's room
and I can't see any better, leaning from here to look
in his eyes. It's dark in the hall
and everyone's sleeping. This is the past
where everything is perfect already and nothing changes,
where the water glass falls to the bathroom floor
and bounces once before breaking.
Nothing. Not the small sound my sister makes, turning
over, not the thump of the dog's tail
when he opens one eye to see him stumbling back to bed
still drunk, a little bewildered.
This is exactly as I knew it would be.
And if I whisper her name, hissing a warning,
I've been doing that for years now, and still the dog
startles and growls until her sees
it's our father, and still the door opens, and she
makes that small oh turning over.
Marie Howe (born 1950)
This is not what I originally planned to feature in this space today, but a computer glitch made using my first choice impossible, or at least more trouble than it was worth. So instead, this poem, which one of my associates read to me the other day. Those first two lines are one hell of an attention grabber.