Poetry Response #4

Still Memory

The dream was so deep
the bed came unroped from its moorings,
drifted upstream till it found my old notch

in the house I grew up in,
then it locked in place.
A light in the hall—

my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of crude oil and solvent.

In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot

unleashes coffee’s smoky odor.
Outside, the mimosa fronds, closed all night,
open their narrow valleys for dew.

Around us, the town is just growing animate,
its pulleys and levers set in motion.
My house starts to throb in its old socket.

My twelve-year-old sister steps fast
because the bathroom tiles
are cold and we have no heat other

than what our bodies can carry.
My parents are not yet born each
into a small urn of ash.

My ten-year-old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit.

—Mary Karr


“Still Memory” by Mary Karr is the memory in the author’s childhood. It is early morning when her father comes home from working a late night shift as her mother makes a pot of coffee. Karr wakes to the scent of “crude oil and solvent” off her father’s clothes and hears the water dripping down from the coffee pot, releasing a smoky odor. She also hears her sister quickly move across the cold tile in the bathroom. The description of these actions occurring appealed to my senses and gave me a feeling of what mornings were like at her house; it made me feel as though I’m watching this memory replay next to her.

The poem itself is a contradiction to the title, “Still Memory”. It is not one snapshot, many actions occur within (as I previously mentioned). One of the interesting things about this poem is the reoccurring theme of darkness. Karr was deep in sleep when she awoke and reached towards the light. “The bed came unroped from its moorings/drifted upstream till it found my old notch/in the house I grew up in/then it locked in place/a light in the hall –“ (Lines 2-5). When there is no light, Karr is able to stay still and not move forward. It is as though she fears something that comes action occurs. Perhaps Karr is unable to face reality, and that reality may be death. When her father stood in the doorway, “not dead”, and her parents were not “yet born each into a small urn of ash”, Karr illustrates a fear her family dying. She doesn’t want things to change. One final example of that is when she notes the town waking, “Its pulleys and levers set in motion/my house starts to throb in its old socket” (Lines 17-18).

In the last stanza of this poem, Karr reaches for a pen to record what is happening around her. She does not want to forget and writing allows her to remember and revisit her memories.