American Life in Poetry

One in a series of elegies by New York City poet Catherine Barnett, this poem describes the first gathering after death has shaken a family to its core. The father tries to help his grown daughter forget for a moment that, a year earlier, her own two daughters were killed, that she is now alone.

He’s heartsick, realizing that drinking can only momentarily ease her pain, a pain and love that takes hold of the entire family. The children who join her in the field are silent guardians.

Family Reunion

My father scolded us all for refusing his liquor.

He kept buying tequila, and steak for the grill,

until finally we joined him, making margaritas,

cutting the fat off the bone.

When he saw how we drank, my sister

shredding the black labels into her glass

while his remaining grandchildren

dragged their thin bunk bed mattresses

first out to the lawn to play

then farther up the field to sleep next to her,

I think it was then he changed,

something in him died. He’s gentler now,

quiet, losing weight though every night

he eats the same ice cream he always ate

only now he’s not drinking,

he doesn’t fall asleep with the spoon in his hand,

he waits for my mother to come lie down with him.