I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake
Run by a lady my age.
She was gay.
When I told her that I came from
She laughed and said, "I lived in
When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus."I felt that I had met someone from home.
No, not Pasadena,
Fatty Arbuckle.
Who's that?
Oh, something that we had in
Like — like — the false armistice.
Piano rolls.
She told me her house was the first Pancake
East of the Mississippi, and I showed herA picture of my grandson.
Going home —Home to the hotel — I began to hum,"Smile a while,
I bid you sad adieu,
When the clouds roll back I'll come to you."Let's brush our hair before we go to bed,
I say to the old friend who lives in my mirror.
I remember how I'd brush my mother's
Before she bobbed it.
How long has it
Since I hit my funnybone? had a scab on my knee?
Here are Mother and Father in a photograph,
Father's holding me….
They both look so young.
I'm so much older than they are.
Look at them,
Two babies with their baby.
I don't blame you,
You weren't old enough to know any better;
If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both,
And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame.
I shut my eyes and there's our living room.
The piano's playing something by Chopin,
And Mother and Father and their little
Listen.
Look, the keys go down by themselves!
I go over, hold my hands out, play I play —If only, somehow,
I had learned to live!
The three of us sit watching, as my
Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers.
