Forced to Confront an Unhappy Childhood by a Poem

Portrait, 1956

   

Try to think, the poem said,

of an image from your chidlhood.

Spoon, said a boy. Ah, the poem said.

But that is not an image. It is,

said the boy. See, it is turned over

on a kitchen table, and on the convex side

a small room is distorted, the middle

where the father sits with two young sons

taking longer to see. Ah, the poem said.

What of the mother in this distorted scene?

Eating on the floor, said the boy. Forbidden tableware.

Good work, the poem said. Strong image.

Very strong and full of foreboding.

Thank you, said the boy. I am still afraid.

—The poem is Louise Glück's  "Image," published
in the Spring 2020 issue of The Threepenny Review
and  adapted here to personal history.