Oath of Omission
This time I’m going to leave out the part
that sneaks onto the cottage roof to swap stories
with the trees. I won’t bother with the popsicle truck
that limped down the tarred and pebbled road,
or how, at dinner, my brothers got me to turn my head
so they could slide their helping of cow’s tongue
on my plate. I won’t wax on about the possum
that perched on the deck-rail with saffron moons
for eyes or how easy it is to empty your heart
at the edge of a lake. I won’t give away the secrets
the poplars tell in their seances or what willows
laugh about on summer nights.
I’ll keep quiet on the year that floated out from under us
like a phantom ship and the map it scratched in the sand,
washed away before anybody could read it. We might think
about that one day, but today let’s leave it out—along with
the holy water the altar-boy-paperboy brought in a jelly jar
for my mother. He told her it could cure a host of ills,
from poison ivy to the loss of faith. She laughed a bit
as she closed the door, put the jar up beside the pickles
and jams, but she used it, in earnest, when my father got sick.
No, we won’t go into all that. The map is long-gone
and whatever was left of the holy water has surely
gone back into air. So we’ll leave this poem with all
its holes—a breezeway, a windswept hollow,
a nearly imperceptible ripple, as close
as we can get to nothing at all.
• • •
Prartho Sereno, former Poet Laureate of Marin County, CA (2015-17), is a Poet in the Schools, author of three prize-winning collections: Elephant Raga, Call from Paris, and Causing a Stir: The Secret Lives & Loves of Kitchen Utensils (which she illustrated). She has an MFA from Syracuse University and teaches The Poetic Pilgrimage at the College of Marin.