We: Mother Daughter Watch the Cob and Pen

When We: 

Mother Daughter Watch

the Cob and Pen

I know but will not tell

you, Aunt Irene, why there

are soapsuds in the whiskey

                                                                Alan Dugan

                                                                Elegy

While I slept I would’ve liked you

to pour me a drink, to be

the bartender to a future me

and much later when you were sure

you’d give it all another go

this life thing.  I’d order some-

thing ordinary but ex-

pensive: a simple three

fingers of your best oldest

Jameson unopened

and when the bar closed we’d go

out back and watch the bottle

get emptier

and emptier and finally

we’d see eye to eye

we’d rise or fall depending

on our height, and I’d remind you

about how once we watched those

swans, a mating pair, one late

afternoon day remember? almost

their whole body in the water

and those questioning necks

and the one Cob raising

his wings so they looked like elbows

all about striking.  Remember?

Remember how we didn’t

decide if they were coming or going

and it was you

who said look at the edges

of this pond, they’re freezing

he’s flapping to keep her

warm look! and I did look and it seemed

like that's what it did, that he was all about tending

and we walked back strangely

brand new having just borne

one another and just been born too

and a wind came about his flapping

behind us and we turned, his mate

came closer and the water

and her ripple made her reflection

seem as though there was a whole bevy of them

when it gained the bank

and melted into it while his wind and

our getting sober combined.  I was just looking

you still choosing your suicide and I---

how could I ever make you

change your mind?  What if I told

you that once the swans take

flight, once they are saved they change

their name, that now they’re

a wedge and they glide through

the sky unstoppable and as an albatross,

and I’d tell you if you even cared to let me

save your life…

but these swans are still

drifting and drifting still and yes the lake is

freezing them in and if they don’t move

if they stay still they could be there

come spring when the ice breaks up,

sighing like a made up mind

in the night, that, come a warm morning:

sees there’s enough melt left to them

and though frozen they are buoyed

by the hold the ice has had on them

and the weight of their winter together

is enough to make their breasts,

their last siege and wedge, fall into

one small splash that from the bank

looks to me to be a whiskey bottle

tipped, bobbing, neck up, neck down,

filling, falling slow to gain weigh enough

to sink.