What I'm Asking

Ambling the vehicle up
along side me, her hand
travels the upholstery
to the door-lock; and the thick hinges
inflect the phrases familiar to me:
how she has swerved the patient car
into the high pitched turns so many times,
her fist battering the dash, or my shoulder; how
all feeling had to be abandoned until leaving her
to drive alone was the only way; her relentless
unburdening of secrets in the car:  telling me
about my older brother, dead at birth, or
the abortion she couldn't carry through,
would never forgive herself
for thinking it, and after all,
wasn't I here, thank God?

How could I possibly answer? 
Once, I shook her
crazily while my father careened the Plymouth
around traffic, a  half-bottle of valium
churning her inside-out while she
struggled to talk against sleep
and the curdle of speech:  Couldn't I,
please, just put the coat around her,
she was cold; and why didn't we let her
finish it off? 
Later, she would never
remember these questions, or the absence
of answers, or how I left the coat off,
praying the cold would keep her
conscious.
Later, such things
always conceal themselves
in our changed memories, the car
become anchored in its driveway.
And our figures, seated
in the lateness of back yard,
might talk of nothing—watch
the bats stagger from the shadows
of trees at night.  Or laugh
quietly, stretching the one sweater
across two backs, knowing this is
all I must expect of her,
no more
than the letting go of questions when
the silence becomes round with those answers
we can't bring ourselves to speak. I know
now that she won't let go of me; that
the silence will belong to her;
that anything I do, even
the precious nothing, might
tilt the frail quiet
against me.
Yet, that would be enough.
Even now, as the car idles patiently,
it's enough.  And something, my God,
is understood after all when her
calm and joyless voice, cudgeled
by the loose pistons and the plaintive exhaust,

begs, "Get back in.
Do you hear what I'm asking?" 

© Karl J. Sherlock