me in the key of B major – my birthday‏

by richibi

bad-boy.jpg!Large      


“Bad Boy” 
 
          Eric Fischl
 
                ______
   
                                le coeur a ses raisons que 
                                la raison ne connaît point
 
                                ( the heart has its own, 
                                 inscrutable to reason, 
                                 reasons)
 
                                                                 – Pascal
 
 
my birthday is coming up
 
long I held that I’d been premature, 
my birthday was not after the 
requisite number of months for a 
legitimate pregnancy, but I held to 
the private drama of my story rather
than ask my parents any questions, 
only later during adolescence did I 
find out from my sister that I had 
not been premature
 
that I could have so misconstrued
astonished me at the time, how 
narrow could be one’s apparently 
infinite perspective, how confined 
and misdirected, a lesson never 
easily, however recurrent, learned,
see love
 
my father would never have forsaken
my mother, nor ever has, he was a 
principled man, a responsible man, 
a man who prized his honour, his 
friends’, his family’s
 
the men in his family were such, all
devoted husbands, though one, late
in life when the children were grown, 
left his wife for greener pastures, 
became a nudist, his wife used to 
change her clothes in the closet, 
he later on complained
 
as a corollary, he cultivated in his 
new environment many girlfriends, 
it appears, despite, by then, his 
advanced age
 
about my aunts, however, my other 
uncle used to say that though he 
had five sisters, he had 17 
brothers-in-law, which isn’t counting 
the ones who hadn’t been husbands, 
I’d add
 
 
put some clothes on, Cid, my aunt
Doris, his sister, said, one morning 
when he was visiting, he was coming 
down the stairs to breakfast – they all 
then, three sons, Aurèle, or Aurelius, 
Cid, Alcide, and my dad, Conrad Hector, 
had the heroic names of Greek and 
Roman warriors, of even, some more 
distant uncles, Hebraic characters, 
Ephraïm, for instance, owing to our 
French, therefore Latin, background 
 
my aunts’ names were, however,  
more prosaic, common
 
my aunt Doris, of the sisters, was, 
perhaps the most uncharacteristically, 
prim, though I suspect she didn’t 
change in a closet, but I would’ve 
never used even the word “penis” in 
front of her for fear of causing her 
alarm, though clearly she’d grown 
up among them
 
she is also the first aunt I confided
in about my controversial then 
situation, after, of course, having 
told my parents, they would know, 
I knew, I had therefore to be the 
first to tell them, but only once I’d 
found my own closet, my own 
home of my own
 
 
I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love,
I said to her over the phone
 
what’s her name, she asked
 
his name is John, I retorted
 
how wonderful, she replied, but, 
let me hand you over to your 
Aunt Anne, her sister, she said, 
while I pick myself up off the 
floor
 
my Aunt Anne was, as usual, only
love and compassion, though she 
never had any children she raised 
at least six, none her own, all of 
whom remained ever profoundly 
devoted   
 
 
to my other relatives, that information
was later on only implicit, and I was 
grateful to have found from them only 
ever love and acceptance, my own 
particularities were understood to be 
anyone’s, everyone’s, we all had our 
inclinations, what mattered was the 
bond
 
 
Richard