Rat Suits
by George H.S. Singer
Sister, you practiced a hard balance those years
hoping an arabesque or perfect pirouette
might bring our disappointed mother near
to being pleased with you so maybe,
just maybe, she’d see your worth
and bring a half smile to her hardened face.
Out of a boy’s narrow throat I mocked your
pliés, and jetés and hated how The Nutcracker
returned yearly like head colds and Yom Kippur.
(They made me knot a silk tie around my neck.)
I hardly could find you or see you in the patterned lines
of nervous girls afraid they’d trip or forget their steps.
One year they put you all in a drab rat suit
the next, red pantaloons and blue vests
and later, they let you dance in toe shoes and a tutu.
Our damaged mother would smirk and complain
that you wobbled as you spun and flubbed your jeté.
In old age with knees and hips that always ache,
she needs you for her aspirin and some company.
A bit addled and forgetful, she’s a little kinder now
as twice a day you walk her nervous Maltese.
You tell me in the hierarchy of pain, divorce
hurt worse than father’s death and you’d
learned to trek like a sherpa up steep inclines.
I see you’ve earned another kind of poise,
a weathered stamina and something generous,
as if you found another way to grace while I have stayed away.
George H.S. Singer has articles in Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, and Tar River Poetry, with a book published by Wordtech Press (ERGON). He was a Zen Buddhist monk for several years and became a professor of special education at UCSB. Now, 77, he lives with his life mate and two dogs who safeguard them from the squirrels. He writes about the ways his senses, heart, and brain at times let him live more deeply as life is more tenuous and miraculous with the gradual onset of age.
