The Tent

The people who visited the Heritage House were mostly women as well. They wanted the explanations that could be found there—why some chairs were higher than other chairs, in the days of Heritage, and who did the scrubbing of the tin bathtubs and the emptying of the chamber pots, and how the water used to make its way out of the well. They wanted to know how things got the way they are now, and they hoped that the explanations given by the smiling women in the Heritage House might help.

Men didn’t care so much about those subjects, and so they didn’t go. Also they said that Heritage ought to mean things that have been inherited, passed down from father to son as it were, but since nobody did the so-called heritage things any more, or even thought about them except when they were in the Heritage House getting nodded and smiled at and bored to death with explanations, Heritage House was a misnomer in the first place and they didn’t see why they should have to pay taxes to keep the joint going.

Over time, the Heritage House filled up. It was such a convenient place to stash things you no longer had a use for but didn’t want to throw out. More and more Heritage was crammed in. An annex was built, in the style of the original edifice, with a tea room in it where you could rest your feet and relax—Heritage could be exhausting—and more female guides were hired, and research was done on authentic costumes for them to wear. But then there was a change of government and funds were cut. Perhaps some of the Heritage should be disposed of, it was said. But by now there was so much Heritage jammed in there that just sorting it out would take much more money than anyone wanted to spend. So nothing was done.

I went to the Heritage House myself, the other week. It was in disrepair. The windows were opaque with dust, the front steps were a disgrace: it was clear to see that nothing had been scrubbed off or fixed up in years. I rang the rusted bell for a long time before anyone answered it. Finally the door opened. I could see a long hallway, piled to the ceiling with boxes and crates. Each box was labelled: CORSETS. MIXMASTERS. THUMBSCREWS. CALCULATORS. LEATHER MASKS. CARPET SWEEPERS. CHASTITY BELTS. SHOE BRUSHES. MANACLES. ORANGE STICKS. MISCELLANEOUS.

From behind the door an old woman appeared. She was wearing a chenille bathrobe. She let me in, pushing aside a stack of yellowing newspapers. The place stank of mouse droppings and mildew.

She nodded at me, she smiled. She hadn’t lost the knack. Then she launched into a stream of explanations; but the language she spoke was obsolete, and I couldn’t make out a word.

BRING BACK MOM: AN INVOCATION

Bring back Mom,

bread-baking Mom, in her crisp gingham apron

just like the aprons we sewed for her

in our Home Economics classes

and gave to her for a surprise

on Mother’s Day—

Mom, who didn’t have a job

because why would she need one,

who made our school lunches—

the tuna sandwich, the apple,

the oatmeal cookies wrapped in wax paper—

with the rubber band she’d saved in a jar;

who was always home when we got there

doing the ironing

or something equally boring,

who smiled the weak smile of a trapped drudge

as we slid in past her,

heading for the phone,

filled with surliness and contempt

and the resolve never to be like her.

Bring back Mom.

who wanted to be a concert pianist

but never had the chance

and made us take piano lessons,

which we resented—

Mom, whose aspic rings

and Jello salads we ate with greed,

though later derided—

pot-roasting Mom, expert with onions

though anxious in the face of garlic,

who received a brand-new frying pan

from us each Christmas—

just what she wanted—

Mom, her dark lipsticked mouth

smiling in the black-and-white

soap ads, the Aspirin ads, the toilet paper ads,

Mom, with her secret life

of headaches and stained washing

and irritated membranes—

Mom, who knew the dirt,

and hid the dirt, and did the dirty work,

and never saw herself

or us as clean enough—

and who believed

that there was other dirt

you shouldn’t tell to children,

and didn’t tell it,

which was dangerous only later.

We miss you, Mom,

though you were reviled to great profit

in magazines and books

for ruining your children

—that would be us—

by not loving them enough,

by loving them too much,

by wanting too much love from them,

by some failure of love—

(Mom, whose husband left her

for his secretary and paid alimony,

Mom, who drank in solitude

in the afternoons, watching TV,

who dyed her hair an implausible

shade of red, who flirted

with her friends’ husbands at parties,

trying with all her might

not to sink below the line

between chin up and despair—

and who was carted away

and locked up, because one day

she began screaming and wouldn’t stop,

and did something very bad

with the kitchen scissors—

But that wasn’t you, not you, not

the Mom we had in mind, it was

the nutty lady down the street—

it was just some lady

who became a casualty

of unseen accidents,

and then a lurid story…)

Come back, come back, oh Mom,

from craziness or death

or our own damaged memory—

appear as you were: