Belongings
—in memory of Angela Marie Incoronata Caruso Mortola,
May 21, 1903–January 14, 2001
1
In-and-out sun like the light of her mind that knows
and doesn’t feels and forgets pelts of rain
hid and seek of thought first gray then rose
but still a steady backlight (sometimes hidden):
“Remember Woody Allen’s line? I’m not
like that I don’t care when it happens where
I just don’t want to die not scared not that
I just don’t want to and I told the doctor!”
and the doctor laughing “Cute old lady said
she doesn’t care about the why and wherefore
she just doesn’t want to die . . .” and therefore?
then she forgets smiles turns her head
to nod grande dame at shadows on the walls
that gather where the light collects and falls
2
They gather where the light collects and falls
we can’t see them but she seems to think
at least a few are smiling so she feels
she has to say hello politely thank
these thoughtful ghosts who visit sister brothers
Sunday best in black old Brooklyn friends
who hardly see the gulf of sixty years
mama and papa severe Sicilian bookends
“Come in, come in” her eyes light up she waves
and beckons all to chairs around her bed
so she can boast to brothers and their wives
of all the special things her daughter did
and how her grandkids won so many prizes
and as she vaunts and glows her smile blazes
3
But though she glows but though her smile blazes
the sister flickers fades the brothers falter
her eyesight’s bad it’s hard to see their faces
as if she peered through gauze or a thick filter
and then the others come the ones she calls
“co-tenants” of her rooms the lovers screwing
coarse as goats in corners nasty girls
smart-aleck guys who do know what they’re doing
and what they do is occupy her place
back home they swarmed all over her apartment
set up a stove behind her lovely bookcase
nursed babies on her sofa bold indifferent
and even here still shameless in their clingings
they mean to steal they’ll steal her best belongings
4
What should she do to safeguard her belongings?
she begs for help urges us to lock
to triple lock the doors to hide her things
her pearls right here her fruitwood in New York
her mother’s hand-carved walnut chairs the leather-
surfaced desk at which my father sat
so long ago wearing the cashmere sweater
grandma bought him and the Sulka shirt
Listen! Are we listening! Have we heard?
How well he dressed! How beautiful their place!
four rooms in Queens what lots couldn’t afford
in an age of breadlines shameful jobs or worse
“Tuono di Dio!” thunder of God she looses
the curse she learned in childhood for most uses
5
The curses learned in childhood have their uses
Tuono di Dio! she swears when they strip her bare
to bathe her Tuono di Dio! when the nurses
slide the soiled bed pads to the floor
or prop her in the wheelchair to be fed
thunder of God echoes along the halls
when she tries to fight the husky nurse’s aide
come to sponge her bruises stains and spills
embarrassed we shiver in the corridor
while she flails and shrieks for the police
“Tuono di Dio! Call the police!” God’s thunder
will scorch us if we leave her in this place
away from her apartment calm and peace
away from her belongings purse and keys
6
Away from her belongings purse and keys
(and crumpled Kleenex reading glasses coins
and comb she always carries in that purse)
she isn’t real! she might be only bones!
yet the belongings longings must go on
the bookcase and the rugs and tables must
survive outlast her so she tells her grandson
how to plan an auction in the east
there are the costs of those belongings that
the value of mahogany and this
the price of sterling silver (which she fought
to buy—a fifth-grade teacher in the thirties—)
and the bracelets furs her in-laws gave
too bad they can’t go with her to the grave!
7
What happens to belongings after the grave?
They’ll be up here and she she’ll be down there
what of the stuff she worked so hard to have?
polished mahogany and mink and silver
and even the fifteen-year-old television
still good still just right for the nightly news
and the brand-new vacuum cleaner even
still a— a something someone ought to choose
her face is crumpling like a handkerchief
don’t give it all away don’t give it up
if you don’t want it at least sell it off!
don’t let the others have it either stop
the thieves before they drag it all away
don’t let my belongings go astray. . . .
8
Don’t let my belongings go astray
call the super tell the doorman keep
the windows locked and barred the crooks away
the one who break and enter when you sleep
the ones who follow sullen knife and rape
how many years she’s warned us can’t we hear
they’ll pick the locks they’ll climb the fire escape
just look the crooks are here are everywhere
a sudden nod a glance at the next bed
where a wizened person gasps and snores
that one now she saw her yes she did
peering in closets rummaging in drawers
even in hospitals they have no pity
they rob you when they see your things are pretty
9
Yet O it’s nice that all her things are pretty
her smile blazes back in Jackson Heights
(on one of the better blocks in New York City)
her beautiful apartment basks and waits
a hush of rugs a drawn Venetian blind
keeping the silence keeping the bars of shadow
gathered like silent guardians around
the hanging shelf the Wedgewood the piano
and there the family photographs are massed
my father’s face blade-thin in sepia
my baby self in flounces or undressed
from times when she was poor but happier
belongings blurry as if underwater
bearing the prints of mother father daughter
10
How far the age of mother father daughter!
my baby room with walls now pink now blue
(but never yellow though I begged I fought her)
and the tiny snowman globe where snowflakes flew
and the little silver Virgin Mary shrine
whose key I turned to play Our Lady’s song
“Ave Maria” tinkling out of tune
and the gray hooked rug where silent bluebirds sang
and a rabbit ran away among the trees
but never vanished never could escape
whatever chased him from the knitted haze
a scary thing because it had no shape
though now the whole room’s painted hazy gray
and the rabbit trees and birds raveled away
11
When did her mind begin to ravel away?
—that time she fell outside the beauty parlor
(getting pretty for her grandson’s birthday)?
she didn ’t answer when we tried to call her
and soon with mop and broom she fought the others
called 911 the super the police
there on the sofa sat the nursing mothers
the lovers crawled and thrashed under the bookcase
we flew to Queens we packed up all her things
the fox-head furs her mother ’s lion-necklace
“But what about all my other best belongings?”
she worried then gave up resigned to silence
a roar of takeoff buckled in she hissed
“Here’s to my new adventure in the west!”
12
At sundown tantrums shake the sunset west
the nurses turn her toward the flashing window
“See the flowers? See the pretty bird’s nest?”
bushes tug in tubs on the patio
where a night wind rises over Astroturf
batters the waiting tables chairs and wheelchairs
as if they stood in a swirl of Pacific surf
whose icy water glitters darkens clears
“Here’s dinner, hon!” the nurse’s aide with bib
holds out a tray of lukewarm grown-up mush
last week a fall tore muscles cracked a rib
how did she fall did someone really push?
she tries to remember strains to see remembers
(sometimes) the names of sundown visitors
13
Sometimes the names of sundown visitors
hook into thought sometimes the sounds unravel
blur sister brothers TV commentators
(Frank and Vito turn into Ted Koppel)
I visit afternoons bring cupcakes chocolate
the only stuff she ever wants to eat
can barely swallow though one night past midnight
she coughs a little chokes on her own spit
the night nurse didn’t hear the radio
was turned on loud she’s kind of scared and sorry
and puts a rose on the poor old lady’s pillow
and a mortician calls and tells us not to worry
above the sunlit bay the slicing planes
rise fast and one speeds east with her “remains”
14
Back among her belongings her remains
glide north northwest in a shiny SUV
designed to weather snowstorms freezing rains
far from the simmering fields of Sicily
the East Coast cemetery’s stony pressed
into a cleft of hills black ice I skid on
leaning to greet the freckled hearty priest
looking not looking at the box she’s laid in
at the edge of the polished boards that hold her husband
the priest says the words she scorned she didn’t believe
(she has to be blessed to belong to holy ground)
and O she would scold us if she were still alive!
no Tuono di dio no bolt so fierce and true
as the light of her mind that felt that thought that knew
Sandra Gilbert, "Belongings" from Belongings © 2006 by Sandra Gilbert. Used by permission of Sandra M. Gilbert
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Poet Sandra M. Gilbert b. 1936
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
Subjects Living, Health & Illness, Growing Old, The Mind
Poetic Terms Series/Sequence, Sonnet
Biography
Though widely acclaimed as a leading feminist literary critic, Sandra M. Gilbert is also a renowned poet who has published numerous collections of poetry, including the Patterson Prize winning Ghost Volcano (1997), and Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems 1969–1999 (2000), which won an American Book Award. Recent collections include Belongings (2006) and Aftermath: Poems (2011). Gilbert’s poetry is known for its erudition, . . .
Poems by Sandra M. Gilbert
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Health & Illness, Growing Old, The Mind
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
Poetic Terms Series/Sequence, Sonnet
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