It’s winter; I’m reading What Narcissism Means <br /> to Me, and my son in the next room tells his friend, <br /> my mom’s house burned down when she was a kid. <br /> <br />For a moment, I’m wearing flip-flops and a colored robe, <br /> the house burning around me lighting up my imagination <br /> like a flashlight borrowed from Tony, and I’m waving <br /> <br />across the years to my son and my son’s friend, <br /> the time between then and now about what it takes <br /> to finish reading “Narcissus Lullabye” and turn <br /> <br />the page. Tony Hoagland’s tongue is his best muscle; <br /> you just know he’s been taking his own advice, turning <br /> light switches on and off with it. In Malkovich no one <br /> <br />wants to be themselves, and in all of T’s poems, that’s all <br /> he is, the gospel of self, the season of being alive <br /> never waning. So there I am, forgiven for being <br /> <br />on that second floor, my robe the color of a New York sunset <br /> over New Jersey, and Tony and Malkovich are both below <br /> in the yard yelling, Jump! I’ll catch you, like I should trust <br /> <br />either of them, but I do, jump that is, and the house <br /> becomes ash sifting down over my son and his friend, <br /> like we’ve been caught in a snowstorm. My son says, <br /> <br />Ma, tell us the story, and I do, since the sins of the mother <br /> are only in what’s withheld and narcissism is learning <br /> to embrace what you know can’t ever be caught. <br /> <br />It’s winter; I’m telling a story, and the time it takes <br /> is the time from one blazing moment to the next <br /> the water to douse them as elusive as your image <br /> <br />in a pond, as vital as the book my son’s friend takes <br /> with him when he heads out into the sweet wreckage <br /> of winter singing a lullaby he didn’t know existed.<br /><br />Laura McCullough<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-tony-hogland-means-to-me-or-why-i-d-rather/
