Excerpt: ‘Slamming Open The Door’

Death Barged In

In his Russian greatcoat,

slamming open the door

with an unpardonable bang,

and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,

rearranges the furniture,

his hand hovers

by the phone;

he will answer now, he says;

he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner

at the head of the table

as we eat, mute;

later, he climbs into bed

between us.

Even as I sit here,

he stands behind me

clamping two

colossal hands on my shoulders

and bends down

and whispers to my neck:

From now on,

you write about me.

What People Give You

Long-faced irises. Mums.

Pink roses and white roses

and giant sunflowers,

and hundreds of daisies.

Fruit baskets with muscular pears,

and water crackers and tiny jams

and the steady march of casseroles.

And money,

people give money these days.

Cards, of course:

the Madonna, wise

and sad just for you,

Chinese cherry blossoms,

sunsets and moonscapes,

and dragonflies for transcendence.

People stand by your sink

and offer up their pain:

Did you know I lost a baby once,

or My eldest son was killed,

or My mother died two months ago.

People are good.

They file into your cartoon house

until it bows at the seams;

they give you every

blessed

thing,

everything,

except your daughter back.

Confessions

Don’t pity me:

I was too lazy to walk

up the stairs

to tuck her in at night.

When I brushed her hair

I pulled hard

on purpose.

And always

the sharp,

plaintive edge

on the rim

of the spoon

of my giving.

Ant

An ant rears its front legs,

its rosary-bead parts

startling and black,

but I do not see it.

You name it.

I cannot see

what she can

not see.

The Unitarian Society of Germantown

The church is a big wooden boat,

Dave and I in a corner,

as the rain drops patter

then slash

through the dark outside.

Hold on tight,

says the kindly moon face

of the minister.

But we can smell our own sweat.

We roll our eyes and moan

and grapple for position.

One by one, the others

press their bodies against us,

until finally,

we tire and lean in

to their patient animal breath,

to wait it out together.

Ladybugs

We see them everywhere now.

Last month, a tiny baby one

more orange than red,

purposeful, crawling

on the wall

above my side of the bed.

Inside a domed reception hall

at a fund-raising supper,

in the middle

of our round table

sits a perfect dead one.

We eat our soup

until one of us spots it,

our spoons slowing.

My niece wraps it in a pink tissue,

as if it were a sequin dropped

from the sleeve of God,

and takes it home.

After the trial, a blizzard

of ladybugs on the courthouse steps,

more this week

than Berks County has seen in years.

At first we crunch them underfoot

until, horrified, we look down

and know what we do.

Hundreds of them,

shining orange and black,

the dead and the living together —

the living

on the backs of the dead.

Excerpted from Slamming Open The Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno Copyright 2009 by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno. Excerpted by permission of Alice James Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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