VACANT PLACES

VACANT PLACES   Bleed in the sink: Mother’s midge-whine words reverberate and ricochet among the vacant places of my stone-still skull: shocked and disbelieving eyes fixated on a sliver of flesh atop the little mound of potato mash stained Rorschach-red.   Mother grips my sliced thumb tight, plunges my pain to numbness just below the tap’s freezing flow and slots the fresh rinsed flesh-piece into place. Over her shoulder she directs my sisters to eat, eat, as the wind and bind of bandage hides this unseasonable horror from sensitive sight.   A fresh plate for me in my pristine vacant place. Half mother’s mash and sprouts from sisters gleefully given; No meat, thank you, I have had a surfeit of flesh. Sisters, once again all smiles and squirms, enjoy their meal. I ingest the food and digest along with mother’s words: in future I will tend my pains in private; I will hasten, and when hidden, I will bleed in the sink.   This lesson learned long ago: to face a vacant place at a crowded table among the festive family gathered for the merry meal. I will shake myself free from fear of a phantom at the feast. I will make myself defrost my rue-rimed face with a semblance of a smile or, failing these, I will take myself aside and hurriedly hide behind a mardi-gras mask to screen my Gorgon’s grimace and, in silent solitude, to save the tinsel from the toxin, I will bleed in the sink.

 

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The last of 4 poems written in memory of my late son, who took his own life at Christmas 2001. The other 3 have been posted earlier [Webmaker & Friends; About Face; Promises]

There will be few festive tables without a vacant place ... where someone dearly loved, and equally dearly missed, should sit ... and yet it is unfair of the mourner to cast a cloud over the other revellers. They are entitled to their joy and merriment, and those who grieve must cope as best they can.

I took my lesson from my mother ... sorrows [she believed] should be taken in solitude, and indeed much of her life in a loveless second marriage was testament to this belief. It's certainly not everybody's way - it may not even be the best way, but now it's mine.

The incident referred to - where I sliced the end off my thumb at the Christmas Dinner - actually occurred.

This is dedicated to all those who have a vacant place at this year's Christmas Feast.