Song and Dance

Did you ever have a family? Dark dining room, bright kitchen, white steam from the big pot my mother’s stirring reaching in wavy tendrils to her face, around her face, all the way around to me at the table, then beyond me into the darkness where my brother is. Were you ever a child? I’m hungry but I know we’ll eat soon, so even the hunger’s sweet. Did you ever really have a brother? He’s singing there in the dark corner beside the stereo, the volume turned down so low all we hear is him, his voice, and his eyes are closed so that there’s nothing around him anywhere that might reveal he isn’t who the song insists he is. And that is? Irresistible, unforgettable, someone to whom as in imaginary gardens where “the nectarine and curious peach into my hands themselves do reach,” love comes as soon as called, comes just as dreamed. Did any of this ever happen? The hunger’s sweet, it’s as if the song weaves through the fragrance of the braiding steam from him to me to her to me to him because her eyes are closed now too; her slippered feet tap, caper a soft shoe while the ladle sways in her hand as she stirs. Were you ever a child? I know I’ll eat soon. Did you ever really have a brother? You should have heard him, his voice was unforgettable, irresistible, his voice was an imaginary garden woven through with fragrance. Did you ever have a family? Their eyes are closed. That’s how I know we’re there inside it, it’s made of sound and steam that weaves between dark dining room, bright kitchen. We’re there because I’m hungry, and we’ll all be eating soon together, and the hunger’s sweet.