literature

Voices from Saginaw, MI: 1952-1974

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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

November 23, 2012
Voices from Saginaw, MI: 1952-1974 by `Nestalgica is about family, the ties that bind, and the ties that are unbound. It's about loss, and moving away, and moving back, and a mother who loves you, and the ways our ancestors did and do things. The form is absolutely amazing, and the poem drags your heart all over the place.
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Literature Text

                Dad would ask so many questions                            I hated interpreting

for him                         hands stuck on refrain                   it wasn’t that my parents were deaf

        but that other parents could hear                    I found that strange                        we had to move

                        our bodies to speak                there was no yelling down the hall                   dinner table laughter

                left Dad wondering                         we spent our time                   repairing

words with our hands                    we were a family of mechanics                  and everything was work


I respected my mother. She was Polish

the same way my father hated women:

it was in their blood. After their divorce,

she raised us alone. Four kids by choice –

no birth control in this Catholic house,

no help from dad. We all knew distance.


        Mom gathered the deaf community               as she would children            she’d always worked

her own personal ministry           she transformed the Holy Mass                                lent interpretation

                to them                        translated the Word of God                        maybe even repaired it

        they bodysung the hymns           flurries of fingerspeech                 the symphony of the deaf

                        applause like peppered jazz                        light-plays with twisting palms           gasping laughter

silent jokes                 singing with their whole bodies                 a careful idiom of movement


They all knew I would go long-distance:

the only college graduate from our Polish

Michigan family, I never found any house

rough enough to settle. I wasn’t a woman

to follow my sisters. Not ready to choose

anything but a constant state of divorce.

 

                        She spoke in couplets            advised between the pauses                     Don’t move

                Family is everything                        Never forget to pray                      God does His work

Be thankful                         had a face like Doris Day                               her spacious laugh

                        direct from the throat                    clear speech                               spent time interpreting

        lips like letters                   Braille of the tongue                       sight-reading for the deaf

                one doctor told her he could salvage 60%                                     but she refused repair


My mother told me about the divorce

& I was happy. She’d kept a distance

between us even still. It was a choice,

she’s said, that she regrets: the Polish

habit of diffidence. Her womanhood

carried on that lonely, broken house.

 

Dad took things apart                     knew the way they fit together                 knew how to repair

                        anything by touch                    felt the gears                     felt the way they moved

        against each other           explored for the severance inside                                    navigated deafness

with the tactile                  loved to use his hands                   he was always working

                a neighbor once asked him to mend her sidewalk                     she couldn’t interpret

                his gentle mumbling               the smile on his face                               his private laughter


Four kids & our mother in one house

didn’t leave much room. The divorce

moved us into the city, a one-woman

act fresh from the suburbs, distant

& white. My mother made Keilbasa;

cabbage when we had no other choice.

 

        Walking conversations were difficult                       had to keep a clear path                       if we laughed

we’d miss each other                     I learned rapt attention                 was constantly repairing

                        broken eye contact                                                 the body interprets

                other bodies              translates vibration                         every slight motion

        Dad could feel it in his feet          Mom in the air                          they worked

                to keep us in their sights                       when other senses failed             when both were born deaf


We bullied the nanny. Mother chose

to take us four to the Orphans’ House

& told us that on her family’s Polish

name that she would leave & divorce

herself of us. We hated the distance

that would mean & loved the woman.

 

                I lost sign language fluency                  moved away at eighteen              once told a deaf

old woman at a funeral that she was a loser                        meant to sign “headlight”                    she laughed

        but I couldn’t bear the shame            I’d lost my parents tongue                           had to work

to say anything                         lost more than words                                     hands can be repaired

                        so I stumbled through the alphabet                                fingers moved

        slower now                        trusted my brothers instead                               their quicker interpretations


My mother showed me what a woman

could be. She said I always had a choice,

said I never had to stay. I could distance

myself however far I needed. Her house

would always be open. After her divorce,

all she had was us. Us & her Polish blood.

 

Most of my family interprets                      always in conversation with the deaf

        made work out of it                        makes me think:                              is it even reparative

to fix their language?     Their deft movements?                My parents silent at the table            hands laughing


The Polish keep our curly-haired women

close by. We keep divorces final, keep choice

alive. The house, the family, the quiet distance.

So, this past quarter I worked on a 10-week-long poetry assignment where I asked my parents for stories about their lives from before I was born. Then, I created characters and voices out of these stories, and I wrote a series of sestinas from them in those voices. (If you don't know what a sestina is, look here.) This is what I called a "braided sestina," which intertwines the two voices into one long poem.

My parents both grew up in Saginaw, Michigan down the street from each other. They've been together in some way, shape, or form for 48 years.
© 2012 - 2024 Nestalgica
Comments65
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afaedare's avatar
I so, so loved your poem. You have a gift for making people see what you're saying and tugging at their heartstrings with simple, real scenes that, woven together, form a simple, real story that is satisfied to unfold itself and doesn't cry for attention. I missed reading something like this. The poem captivated me without screaming in my face and I enjoyed every moment. Thank you. Best,

M