Two Poems
Pumpkin Seeds
We are all together again
on Halloween eve
just like always, me
up to my elbows in pumpkin guts,
you and your dad
seated at the table
before spread-out newsprint.
Divorce is irrelevant
when there are pumpkins to carve.
I attack another
with the largest kitchen knife I own,
in imitation of a bad horror movie.
How pale and vulnerable
my wrists are. I am crazy
for the seeds. The seeds
are the only reason I carve pumpkins
anymore. Well, and to see what you—
at your age—might make. Interwoven
throughout one stringy womb,
I find sprouted seeds, a pumpkin
pregnant with fledgling
jack-o-lanterns of the future;
lit and grimacing faces that will
never be, maniacal grins for porches
we can only imagine. Then, I tell you
a story: the autumn you were in utero,
your first trimester, I craved pumpkin seeds,
and your dad brought them to me by the bowlful.
In fact, you are probably 95 percent pumpkin seed
I say and you say, I don’t really like them!
We laugh, we three, around our table. Then,
we light candles, place them inside the hollows
we have made. Just like us, they flicker and wink
at decay. Cleaned and carved by loving hands,
the very faces of creation.
Telling You
We needed to tell you the truth
to find the right words about us
a way we weren’t sure how it happened
over the years our son our gift
we lost touch lost our way our son
with love like a plant uprooted
torn up that lived and died unexpected
in the now once upon a time
you will grow a time toward the future
and connect through you we are
are going to be connected dear son
you said life goes on peace out
okay okay okay
*Note: this poem should be read by three voices. Voice 1 reads column one going down, Voice 2 reads column two, Voice 3 reads column three. After each column is read, then the lines are read across like this:
Voice 1: We needed
Voice 2: to tell you
Voice 3: the truth
etc.
—Lisa Vihos, Sheboygan, WI
