Family: 5 Variations
By Annie Dawid
1.
At table, silence,
rum-blossomed cheeks
puffing with goose,
adult children smile
slyly, sipping their drinks.
2.
Squatty-bodied, dark and loud,
they gallop their words
over lox and chopped herring,
opinions fly like scrapping gulls.
"You're wrong!"
"You don't know what you're talking about!"
The child wishes for worlds
where only one person
speaks at a time.
3.
Parents and grandparents,
three friends, four visitors
representing Jews, Hispanic
lapsed Catholics, more lapsed
Wasps and various agnostics
argue testosterone
and range-and-basin geology,
baby spitting peas and pasta,
two husbands check their balls
(still there) and mourn
their manhood while tacos keep
flipping from grills, beer keeps
emerging, warm, and later
the men clean up, grumbling.
4.
Three lesbian couples, two babies, adopted,
of another race, urban vegetarian
uniting with rancher's daughter
over potato salad, public radio from Fargo humming
in the background, Lucy Blue
coming to town and questions of
childcare, no spice in the rice,
no men in the room,
air heavy with intrigue
as one couple crumbles, all eyes
on the parental pair, one
wanting babies while her protesting
partner wants the newcomer,
too alluring to resist for long.
5.
Three gay men, one straight woman
at her house, she's serving
spanakopita and baba ganoush
while her dog, neutered, huddles under the table,
and the topic of
discussion is how to make
a family, she wanting baby
from the one who refuses,
the one with the temper wants one now,
but she prefers his partner,
already a father in a previous life,
now monogamous.
At breakfast, nothing concluded,
they start over again.
Source: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/anatomie-of-the-world-by-annie-dawid/
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