A Few Branches Up the Magnolia Tree

A Few Branches Up the Magnolia Tree

We weren’t afraid of him but of how 

he’d peer over the porcelain, say “Clear 

your plate, boy,” harsher than our own father

would have said it, so we’d shove 

our shoulders back but not our chairs. 

Son of the Depression, he screwed the lids 

on canned pears and how he really felt,

ate the orange rinds and best dealt 

love in shrimp, grits, and knowing, 

at least, the names of the grandchildren 

who crunched through the oyster-shell drive

to where he sat on the wraparound

porch overlooking the slow curve 

of the Beaufort River, that strong arm 

of water my dad says raised him when his was busy

politicking among the crab traps. 

What I best remember when we cleaned out

the basement of Marshlands after

the sailboat he whispered was coming 

to pick him up had loaded its cargo 

and disappeared behind the veil

of Spanish moss, was a can of peaches, 

twenty-years-old at least, bloated 

nearly beyond recognition, 

this tender, fermented thing passed down 

through the cellar to us, and how my father

and his siblings laughed through tears

and I cried, too, if more for the presence

than the person. It was the kind of feast

we all find ourselves at eventually,  

none of us getting a say about what’s 

on the plate we’re served, 

none of us going to be excused 

until we’ve taken every last bite.