Brief Candles
I.
He piled pyramids of oranges,
racked rows of persimmons,
queued up crates of corn, their husks peeled back,
kernels glib in their neat little lines.
My father, produce man par excellence,
didn't he just once want to break
the monotony, to plunk them down
in some haphazard heap?
II.
I hate the disciplined drills of an army battalion.
Hate the straight hedge
the edged lawn, the crisp crease
running down the center of pressed slacks.
Hate the birds their mobile V' s,
The way they won't leave their row
on a telephone wire.
III.
Hate the fact that I will never know
my grandparents’ voices,
how the newborn moon,
cord wrapped around its neck,
lit up their shaven scalps.
Were they lined up precisely,
like the candles I've seen
in white paper sacks,
unending chain
linking the lake
at the solstice?
They flicker, the lights
everyone says are so lovely.