Extended Family

By Linda Chase

Subtle interactions between nuclear family members are at the core of this light-hearted and witty collection of poems in which poignant observations are made about love, death, and human nature. The energies and cadences of speech are beautifully echoed in these revealing poems about passion, anger, tenderness, and gratitude.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxford Poets
• Release date: Jun 30, 2006
• ISBN: 9781847777911

Book preview

LINDA CHASE

Extended Family

Acknowledgements

Some of the poems in this collection were first published in the following magazines: Envoi, The Frogmore Papers, The North, Parameter, PN Review, The Rialto and Tears in the Fence. A version of ‘Younger Men Have Birthdays Too’ was published in PN Review.

Thanks to Jenifer Giannako and her daughters, Anastasia St. Amand Williams, Michael Arnold, Jemma Kennedy and all those who have shared the house at 163 over the past twenty-five years.

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Dedication

I Extended Family

Independence

The Handover

Grand Central Station, 1947

The Long Island School (for Dore Ashton)

The Long Island School (for Lilian Ruben)

Copley Pond

Catching for America

The Geography of Goodbyes

Launching from Brooklyn

Night Light

The Last Sane Thing

Flights from China

Death in the Family

Flower Market with My Son

3lb 6oz

Extended Family

Against a Backdrop of Fireworks

Tuning Your Cello

The Things You Bring

Telling You

Death Notice

Do You Think the Snow Will Stick?

Frames of Mind

1 A Short History of Restraint

2 Dead Lock

3 Havoc

4 The Weeping House

5 Two a Day

6 Water’s Way

7 Disarmed

8 Cheetham Hill to Crumpsall

9 Home Life

Keeping the Boys Home

Paces

Cellar Dance

Sharing

Premature

Nice

All Day Goodbyes

1 Morning Goodbye

2 Afternoon Goodbye

3 Evening Goodbye

Confidence

Scene Shift

One of Them

Judo Mad

‘It’s Only Time’

The Young Taoist Transcends His Body

Passing

White China Bowl

Consultant

The Widow Puts Off Grief

Limits

Soup Course

Immaculate Mother

An Amusing Little Breakfast

Pre-Op

Verse Vampire

The Good Sister and the Good Brother

Beach Story

The Giveaway

Upgraded

Mentor

My Last Lover

Still Things Left

II Younger Men Have Birthdays Too

Younger Men Have Birthdays Too

Love Watch

Gamble

Loving Parents

Purification

Secret

Restaurant

Urgency

Cooking for You

Journeys with my Phantom Lover

Flying to Spain

Tuscany

The Same as What?

Red Wings

My Brave Pink

Ourselves

The Radio Next Door Is Far Too Loud

You Have a Daughter

Carrot Wheels

The GUM Clinic

1 Sex Talk at the GUM Clinic

2 Prescribed Non-Restrictions

3 Wish You Were Here

The Ticking Son

Passing the Parcel

The Afternoon After

The Badly-Done-By Finish

The Tin Dragon Fights Back

My Friend Who Works

Scuffing

Out of the Loop

Single Was Swell

Poetic Licence

Early Train South

Graffiti

Here Again

Last Logging On

Hacker

Dreaming Knows

Slow Pink

About the Author

Also by Linda Chase from Carcanet Press

Copyright

With love,

to my extended family

I

Extended Family

Independence

I’m never in America

on the Fourth of July

but I light a match

and throw it up into the air.

Some years, the ones

in which I feel

intensely patriotic,

I wait till it gets dark. 

The Handover

She lowered me into your arms,

your confident, sturdy, two-year-old arms,

like a gift from a guilty weekend,

assuming you’d know what to do with me.

Our father let the handover happen.

Our mother had fallen in love with you

and this was her way of putting things right.

Who knows, she might have killed for you,

but then a baby makes such a good gift.

You taught me everything you knew –

the toddler things like walking, talking, scooting,

then later things like secret forts in woods

and brooks with turtles, ticks and water snakes,

then on to caps and guns and cherry bombs.

I was learning well exactly how to be a boy.

In the mornings, after you woke me up,

I put on swimming trunks without a top

and dived straight into the lake from the tower.

Afternoons, on the hillside trail,

I wore cowboy boots, a neckerchief,

and galloped my horse down the river bed.

Evenings, left by myself in the house,

I wondered if I was perfect.

I know I was perfect for a while.

I remember your face at the door of our den

as you pushed aside a heavy branch

to keep the bad guys out and let me in. 

Grand Central Station, 1947

As we got off the train

hand in hand, hot air thick with soot

gusted up, whipping us from behind

and we were caught in a wind tunnel

the length of platform 17.

It propelled us toward anyone

waiting to meet this train at the barrier.

I held on to you, my coupling.

The gate was ahead and we didn’t have

the weight