Poem Therapy at 12:49 P.M. - James McKean

James McKean


Elegy for an Old Boxer
James McKean

From my window
I watch the roots of a willow
push your house crooked,
women rummage through boxes,
your sons cart away the TV, its cord
trailing like your useless arms.
Only weeks ago we watched the heavyweights,
and between rounds you pummeled the air,
drank whiskey, admonished “Know your competition!”
You did, Kansas, the ‘20s
when you measured the town champ
as he danced the same dance over and over:
left foot, right lead, head down,
the move you’d dreamt about for days.
Then right on cue your hay-bale uppercut
compressed his spine. You know. That was that.
Now your mail piles up, RESIDENT circled
“not here.” Your lawn goes to seed. Dandelions
burst in the wind. From my window
I see you flat on your back on some canvas,
above you a wrinkled face, its clippy bow tie
bobbing toward ten. There’s someone behind you,
resting easy against the ropes,
a last minute substitute on the card you knew
so well, vaguely familiar, taken for granted,
with a sucker punch you don’t remember
ever having seen.

Of course this poem reminds me of my father and the years left to him.

What immediately comes to mind is, better a has been, than a never was, something my father says at least once a week when he's trying to make himself feel better about getting old.

I suppose all that remains of us once we make our exit, is our stuff, to be sorted and taken to the goodwill or dump. I can't imagine my daughter dealing with all of my stuff. My book collection, art supplies, or my paintings, collages, sculptures, journals and ephemera, well, it's a little overwhelming, especially for one child to deal with. I'm going to pare way down, donate, etc. so it's not such an onerous task.

Perhaps the accumulation of a lifetime of stuff, the impossibility of it, is why so much ends up at the goodwill, and subsequently, my house. An uncle took my every last bit of three spinster aunts' possessions to the dump. What rankles most is that their journals and letters, literally the record of their lives, ended up in a landfill.