Scott Withiam

WATCHING DEER IN A SNOWSTORM A FEW DAYS AFTER ORAL SURGERY, RECALLING WHAT THE DENTAL ASSISTANT SAID

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012

___________

Scott Withiam: “How to say it? More and more I’m drawn to dialogues, to what people say more than what they do? In ‘Watching Deer in a Snowstorm …,’ it’s not what people do; it’s what their dialogues do. Two seemingly separate dialogues run together to make a third, somehow more convincing voice. I like how the intention behind language can be overridden by the unintentional (real or forced) nature of language.”

Scott Withiam

HIM TO PICKLES

My grandfather laid rail
toward cities he claimed
no interest in.
The day his buddy fell
off of their flat car home and died,
he traveled as far
as his bulkhead, down to his basement,
to the walled, dank quiet
and never, really, came out
of it, as we say. He lost
one son to lockjaw. He went soft,
opened a haberdashery,
felt and cloth.

A war came. The store failed.
His only son left, but came home.
As his grandson, I knew none
of the above, only what I loved,
as it should be, him,
and at the base of the stairs,
off to the side, in the dark,
his sweating crock,
in it, bread & butter pickles curing,
the round wooden cover
slid away sounding
like the cover on a well,
only deeper,
and if not slid back,
signaling

my grandfather floating up
bright-eyed into the kitchen,
holding up
his pickles in a glass measuring cup;
but not for measuring, only to view
the sugar-slowed brine,
swelled mustard seed,
all of those onions
translucent,
tamed. All this plunked down
on the table between us.
Him saying, “You’ll never
taste anything like these again,”
more to himself.

—from Rattle #35, Summer 2011

Scott Withiam

CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS WORLD?

There were all kinds of arguments and atrocities occurring on the earth’s surface. There was one night’s graceful smothering of snow. Then arguments muffled below the surface. Below one man’s windowsill, buried along the buried lane came, “Why bother?” And a response: “Why not?”—tulip bulbs arguing, their argument: whether or not to bloom. Can you imagine this world? he thought. He got them out of it by himself going outside, digging them up and throwing them into one paper bag. He drove them to the expansion bridge and stopped in the middle, got them out, lined them up one by one on a steel girder, precariously leaned them against those big bolt heads and said it: “You’re bulbs, not bolt heads.” “What’s going on?” one asked. He snapped their picture, then said, “Bulbs without a flash.” “What is this?” another more officiously demanded. “Look down,” he said, “look at the islands.” “There are no islands.” “Yes there are,” he said, “You just can’t see them. They’re beautiful, but under snow.” A sharp blast of wind almost blew a few over. “Okay, okay,” a couple of bulbs said; “What do you want?” a few more cried. “Look down,” he said. “We did”; “There’s nothing”; “It’s bleak”; “It’s frozen,” were the answers. “Exactly,” he said. “What’s beneath all of this?” came the question. “Bingo,” he said, “not a flowing but a flowering river.” “We don’t get it.” “Neither do we,” he said, “but you don’t have to. Just come back home and do what you do.” “And you, what will you do?” one bulb asked. They were on their way. There were flashing lights, a siren. “You were driving erratically,” the officer said. “What’s in the bag?” “What’s it to you?” one bulb said, “please.” “Please,” said another, “we want to get back. We want to get going.” “Are you talking to me, Buddy?” the cop asked. “No,” the man said, “they are.”

—from Rattle #35, Summer 2011