Museum of Childhood
Dad didn't play the ponies
or manic games at night;
Mom was addicted
only to her soaps. Sisters
at war never swore.
Silence was genius
of an era, nothing
personal. Our hidden grief
shadowed the Fifties' sunshine
like Eisenhower's speech
against the military-industrial
complex, like playground
platoons still blowing up Japs.
Thanksgiving comes late
in this museum of childhood,
flower painted at the bottom
of a porcelain teacup:
cracked saucer, no sugar, no milk.
Copyright Credit: Joyce Peseroff, "Museum of Childhood" from Eastern Mountain Time. Copyright © 2006 by Joyce Peseroff. Reprinted by permission of Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Source: Eastern Mountain Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006)