“Save the Human Race” by Christine Potter

Christine Potter

SAVE THE HUMAN RACE

Although she never did before, my mother lies.
She doesn’t have dementia. She answers questions

like someone drinking white wine at a dinner party,
pretending to have read the best-seller: Of course

I went to church! There was a skirt, she says, and
a dress—the same pattern? Red. I wore one of those.

The one we tried on Friday? I ask. A silence.
She takes a breath, relieved: Yes! The secret she

doesn’t have is safe. My father has been counseled
not to argue with her, or has his hearing aid off.

I think he’s going to say North Korea is planning
to nuke Hawaii, where my sister is on vacation, but

he’s into economic inequality and arthritis instead.
At least I don’t have to explain why I believe this is not

the worst time civilization has ever known, remind
him to take his pain-killers, cite the Civil War or

the Black Death. He’s in a good mood. He tells me
about the diversionary mission he never flew with

his Air Force unit, the medical discharge just in time.
I feign surprise; he’s shared this secret with my sister,

not me. So now we both know, I type into the email.
Dad wouldn’t have been one of the few survivors.

I think about not being anything at all, a missed beat,
a bright white screen with nothing on it. I hit send.

Outside, little brown and grey birds peck at the feeder.
A young hawk, mumbling his hunger, misses them

and takes off. And a jet in the cloudless sky is a silver
brooch on a white ribbon, up so high I can’t even hear it.

from Rattle #45, Fall 2014
Tribute to Poets of Faith

__________

Christine Potter: “About ten years ago, when my husband and I were making music in a high Episcopal church that was much into incense and bells, I sat in the choir loft and felt the connection between poetry and Scripture. It was a visceral thing, an awakening. In fairness, I may have been slightly oxygen-deprived at that moment (they were really into incense and bells there), but I still think of the two together. I believe in God and I believe in His presence here on earth in Jesus Christ. And I write poems. I think the spirit that makes poems happen is holy, even if the poetry is utterly profane. And even if you’re not choking on clouds of frankincense when you write it.”

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