POETRY | NARRATIVE | STORYTELLING

Restoration

Narrative Poetry — On Reclaiming One’s Life

He opens the drawer to the desk his father once owned, that antique monolith from a man he never knew, and removes a sealed, crusted envelope, his father’s name neatly penned in his mother’s refined script.

He carefully slides the yellowed letter from the envelope, unfolds it, and lays it upon the desk. As he smooths wrinkles from it, he reads the contents slowly, savors the words like he once savored his mother’s fudge, allowing the prose to seep into his mind like the melting of chocolate down his throat.

As his mother’s words resound through his mind, he recalls the austere diction of her voice, the matter-of-fact, demanding pitch that he, as a child, cringed in corners, with hands over his ears to drown out the harshness that pealed through the house. The words he now reads upon faded gold sheets, the tone of one in love, an air of magnetism and dignity, are not words the mother he knew would convey.

And he ponders the man who left her, why he never opened the letter from his wife, if his coldness froze the flames of this woman leaving her as frigid in life as she was in love.

And he wonders if the man knew a son was left behind to pick up the icicles which fell from his mother’s eyes each time she gazed upon the photo of her husband. He folds the letter, places it back inside the envelope, lays it on top of a stack of his mother’s mementos, and as though to return passion to his own life, he tosses the contents into a waste basket, ignites the icy memories of his family’s past and watches as flames rise, consume, and turn them to ash.

©1996-2020 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.

This poem has gone through many revisions since I initially wrote it in 1996 for a course in Narrative Poetry. Except for my professor and classmates at the time, this poem hasn’t been read by anyone else in all these years, until now.

If you enjoyed this poem, please consider this one:

Lori Carlson writes poetry, fiction, articles and personal essays. Most of her topics are centered around Relationships, Spirituality, Life Lessons, Mental Health, and the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to The Purple Pen, Lori writes for fourteen other publications here on Medium. You can check out her personal Medium publication/blog here — Ravyne’s Nest.