We’ll Always Have Parents

By MARY JO SALTER

 

It isn’t what he said in Casablanca

and it isn’t strictly true. Nonetheless

we’ll always have them, much as we have Paris. 

They’re in our baggage, or perhaps are baggage

of the old-fashioned type, before the wheels,

which we remember when we pack for Paris.

Or don’t remember. Paris doesn’t know

if you’re thinking of it. Neither do your parents,

although they’ll say you ought to visit more,

as if they were as interesting as Paris.

Both Paris and your parents are as dead

and as alive as what’s inside your head.

Meanwhile, those lovers, younger every year

(because with every rerun we get older),

persuade us less, for all their cigarettes

and shining unshed tears about the joy

of Paris blurring in their rear view mirror,

that they’ve surpassed us in sophistication.

Granted, they were born before our parents

but don’t they seem by now, Bogart and Bergman,

like our own children? Think how we could help!

We could ban their late nights, keep them home

the whole time, and prevent their ill-starred romance!

Here’s looking at us, Kid. You’ll thank your parents.

 

[Purchase Issue 13 here]

Mary Jo Salter’s eighth book of poems, The Surveyors, will be published by Knopf in 2017. She is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and lives in Baltimore.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

We’ll Always Have Parents

Related Posts

Photograph of a bug

Holding the World’s Coat

DANIEL MOYSAENKO
I do not like what you’ve done to yourself— // predictable theatre of struggle / I’m in the wings / of / world // Instead take this / translucent /  pisces-glyph bug: // Its antennae flitting to test / the space just in front of its face / It struts right into a recluse web 

Headshot of Stephanie Niu

Phenomenology Study / Elegy for Island Love  

STEPHANIE NIU
The banana plant that thrashed outside my lover’s window / seemed unreal. Our hours together felt like a dream: / how he nudged a spider up the shower tile / with a cupped hand, unwilling to hurt anything / alive. How unlike me, watching the slow turn / of the ceiling fan...

The Month When I Watch Joker Every Day

ERICA DAWSON
This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...