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What do any of us know about our parents,
separate or together? My mother kept the house
in order, prepared food, wore the epinetron smooth
rolling the threads, the skeins of daily love.
She wove our clothes, played knucklebones, snakes & ladders,
lined up with other women at the well,
walked home balancing the vase on her head
as she balanced our family, the oikos.
Like most parents she hid her care, sadness, the arguments
with my father heading off on another odyssey.
Da played dead when I stabbed him, let me
wear his helmet, turned into a tickle monster.
Ma scolded him for exciting me before bed.
I suppose they were like most parents. What do I know?
I had no others. They were as mysterious as the night sky,
the Islands of the Blest, the sea, Hades, the god
hidden within the darkness of the forbidden inner temple.
David H. Freedman on smartphone apps and the perfected self, Mark Bowden on being in the dumb kids' class, James Parker on Glenn Beck, Isaac Chotiner on P. G. Wodehouse, and more
Browse back issues of The Atlantic that have appeared on the Web. From September 1995 to the present, the archive is essentially complete, with the exception of a few articles, the online rights to which are held exclusively by the authors.
See All Back Issues: September 1995
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