It is the hour of lamps. <br />On our knees my mother <br />and I, still young, color <br />with crayons threadbare nap <br /> <br />on the livingroom rug. <br />Though there is no money, <br />no one seems to care. We <br />are self-possessed as bugs <br /> <br />waving their antennae <br />through cracks in the kitchen's <br />linoleum floor. When <br />Father begins to read <br /> <br />from the red gilt volume <br />in his lap, a circle <br />of light encapsulates <br />us like hearts in a womb. <br /> <br />Except their marriage is <br />already dead. I know <br />this though I'm only six. <br />So we visit Pharoahs, <br /> <br />a boatman on the Nile, <br />Crusaders eating grapes <br />on a beach. Life escapes <br />with all its sadness while <br /> <br />two tragic Greek poets <br />inhabit Father's voice. <br />Who'd know I'm just a boy <br />when he begins a stoic <br /> <br />moral tale concerning <br />a dull provincial doctor's <br />young French wife. If Mother, <br />in French, begins to sing <br /> <br />to herself, I know she's <br />had enough. Crayon stubs <br />litter the crumbling rug. <br />Our prostrate cat sneezes <br /> <br />at the dust in her fur. <br />And cries from a swallow <br />remind us one swallow <br />doesn't make summer.<br /><br />Henri Cole<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/harvard-classics/
