Getting You Back

"Getting You Back"

You never let me have the car.
so one night, I stole it anyway.
Drove it piled high with my friends
across the bridge to Jersey where we
drank beer and ran up the mileage
and nobody wore seat belts.

I was getting you back.

For having weird, outdated eyewear
and a totally un-cool comb-over that
we laughed at when you weren’t around.

The car was a 1960 Rambler
with a pinkish primer coat in place of a paint job
push button transmission
reclining pleather seats
and strange, curvy tail lights
resembling exotic eyelashes
over red winking eyes.
The tail lights used to embarrass me
for some reason
but not enough to keep me
from wanting the car.

I was getting you back.

For not helping me with my homework
because you only went as far as the sixth
grade and had to learn a trade instead.
For our faces bearing no resemblance
while the rest of the world’s children
had their parent's faces superimposed
over their own.
I was getting you back for that too.

Because, even though I appeared
out of nowhere, you called me your daughter
without passing anything down to me
not a freckle or a dimple... not even a lousy allergy.

For being a mechanic and raising a poet.

And for keeping those rare
Paul Newman diamond blue eyes all to yourself.

I was getting you back.

I was busy growing up and
you were busy growing tomatoes
in a pot on the radiator (much to mom's
annoyance) in the dead of winter.
Until the day we found you gently picking
one tiny, summer- perfect
miracle that looked like a cherry tomato
and tasted like a grapefruit.

Yesterday, while rummaging through
an old shoebox of ragged-edged Polaroids,
I found a few of you
out fishing with your brothers
on a grayish dock
hoisting up a grayish fish
still hooked and heavy and
hanging perilously close to your head
with a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon
beside your left foot and you're
wearing a facial expression
bordering on pride.

There’s the one of you and mom
riding horses on your honeymoon.
Mom looks absolutely petrified and
the horses look incredibly bored and
you look exactly the same as you do
in the one with you and the fish.

Then I found a picture of you
cradling me with callused
hands more comfortable curled
around a hammer handle
your work toughened fingers
standing out in stark relief
against the soft
grayness of the blanket.

It was our first day together and you
were handing me to Mom
(who was sitting in the Rambler)
her face a pale cathedral and
yours, so amazed, that those rare
Paul Newman diamond blue eyes
are breaking right up
through the gray wash
holding even more of me
than your hands were.