A family poem

It was in the basement

where my sister and I - eight and six

respectively - chose sides. Catherine was

at my mother’s, and I sat at my father’s.

There the cats drew territorial lines

as well and beheld: a house divided

evenly.

I remember sharing my father’s lap

with the brown tabby cat who

didn't like to be touched, 'a shmoke

and a doke,' as my father said. Leaning

my head on the space between

his neck and shoulders, I breathed

his scent of musty books and aftershave

till 10 p.m. as Star Trek: Voyager bleeped

on the old TV.

There I decided that my father was a Vulcan

and my mother, a Klingon. To those

of you familiar with the Academy, you’ll

see their doomed fate clearly. To those

of you lacking, I shall say my father’s

stoism and my mother’s fever could never

be in a balance, could never intertwine,

less they be sharing an expensive dinner

on some island paradise accompanied

by a nice bottle of wine.

I like to think that vacation peace,

that honeymoon tranquility, that equal

understanding allowed my parents

to love before Catherine and I

learned to talk. Mostly me, I

suppose. We, our squeals,

our arguments, our play, our

bites, our laughs, our whines -

we took paradise and put up

parenthood.

But even before we youngens

matured and learned to speak

with our minds and hearts as one,

we had those simple moments

in the basement for an hour

later in the night than all our

classmates were allowed stay awake.

There, father and I (and reserved cat)

were piled, two on top of one and a foot

away, my mother and sisters (and the

better cat) side by side or leaning down

together.

In this dark wood paneled basement

with the dark teal carpeting and the

black window shutters shutting out

light from the stars and moon,

my family traversed the Gamma quadrant

in silent harmony. After our mission

was complete, I was carried upstairs

and Catherine crawled up them, on hands

and knees, matching the pace of

the good cat who would later join her

in bed.

At the close of the night, my mother

or father would stay in our room

and tell us a story or sing us to sleep.

They were never a duet and it was

more often my mother than my father -

perhaps it was those chosen sides

revealed by our seating arrangement,

I was always happier to listen to my

father’s low, hushed, quiver of a voice

and his tales of the adventures of our

two cats and what they do when we look

away.

But as the years past and we grew

(Catherine more so in height, I in…

call it: gene se qua) only my mother

stayed loyal to her place on the thick

green carpet, reading the American Girl

books or Harry Potter aloud. She became

much more to me than my rival and my

father was slowly pulled behind dark curtains,

one after the other.

Yet, here we all stand. Run
your hands across us, strum

us like a guitar. Listen. Do

you hear it? Our lineage stayed

strong.