Steinbeck in Postmodern America

I watch my mother through the sliding glass door.

            She’s standing at the chipped kitchen counter

            in her flour-speckled red checkered apron,

            with wiry hands on the edge of the sink

and gazing out the window at something,

            the stars or the treetops blowing briskly

            or maybe the neighbors making love on

            their dingy beige sofa because they forgot

            to pull the curtains again, those savages.

 

And I’m sitting outside on the dark and mossy deck

            under a flickering yellow light mounted

            against the peeling white sides of the house,

            reading Of Mice and Men and liking it,

            running my toes along the warped wood and

            dreaming of fireworks in two months time.

 

There’s a promise of Socratic circles in English tomorrow,

            and I’m not sure exactly who Socrates is

            (I think he was friends with Aristotle maybe)

            but I imagine he much preferred the square,

            rugged in all its systematic glory, free from

            the entrapment of unknowable constants.

 

We are Americans, my mom and Steinbeck and I.

            I can finger Lennie in as many ways as I like,

            feeling his inky skin against my oily fingertips,

            but I can’t know him they way I want to,

            not as a middle class conservative white male

            with a house falling apart but a house nonetheless

            and a mother to bake me apple pies when I’m hungry,

            and not when I’m reading his story as an assignment

            because all I want is to finish it and get an A in discussion.

 

My mom’s a watcher, taking notes on everything in

            silent observation, wiser than most but neglected by all.

            Steinbeck’s a genius, taking notes on everything in

            enlightened observation, absorbed by the masses but never tasted.

            And I’m emptily anticipating summer, wishing I

could understand them, but counting stars and page numbers instead.

 

 

Reviews

[Thoren]

Well done piece! Very nice flow of words. Great presentation. Very nice read. Wow!