Iliadic Familias (with insertions from Homer)
I.
My mother used to cry in the car while driving. This was terrifying to me in the back seat. Not only was she responsible for my safety, but I could not see her face. And now I cry in the car while driving. My children behind me fight over who gets to hold the twist-tie. This is a particularly deadly fight. I turn the news up so as not to hear them. I want to hear the mother who is talking about her dead son so that I can cry. Sometimes they ask me why I am crying. I always say, “The war.” This is how they come to be against the war. This is also how I came to be against the war that made my mother cry. She used to say, “It was not politics that got to me. What did I care about politics? It was thinking about the neighbor’s son.” This is the famous fierceness of mothers. We do not want to listen to our children fighting because it will distract us from the war, which is making us cry. One mother says she opens the newspaper and immediately begins to cry, even before she reads anything. Another cannot watch child-in-danger movies. This is also true for me to an extreme degree. Once I was kept up more than half the night worrying about a girl in a movie who’d had her appendix out. The surgery was not dangerous, it was very simple and she emerged from it perfectly well. In fact, the surgery was placed in the plot in order to bring her uncle and his boyfriend back together. Their mutual concern and love for the girl was a sign of their continued love for each other. All of this I knew. I also knew, incidentally, that it was fiction. However, I could not sleep because they never showed the girl back home. In the last shot of her she was asleep in the hospital bed, resting peacefully. We were supposed to be thinking about the two men who loved each other and who were watching over her as if she were their child. We were supposed to be thinking about love and how it is not the exclusive property of parents or heterosexuals, but belongs to everybody. But I wanted the girl to wake up. She never woke, so I never slept. In the morning, I told my husband and he was furious with me. He wants me to be able to watch movies and it is more and more evident that I can no longer watch movies. This, according to my husband, is a pathetic failure to be objective, rational, and to have fun.
II.
My mother used to cry in the car while driving to stop the sorrowful fighting. This was terrifying to me in the back seat. We shall fight again afterwards, until the divinity chooses between us. Not only is she responsible for my safety, she gives victory to one or the other. And now I cry in the car while driving. By this time the terms of death hang over us. My children behind me fight. There is no sparing time for the bodies of the perished; this is a particularly deadly fight. Standing there in their midst, I turn the news up high. Now the sun, rising out of the quiet water and the deep stream of the ocean speaks of the mother who speaks about her dead. As they wept warm tears they lifted them. Sometimes they ask me who I am crying. In the same way, on the other side, their hearts in sorrow. She used to say, “It was not politics, what did I care about politics? Is there any mortal left on the wide earth who will still declare to the immortals his mind and its purpose?” This is the famous fierceness of mothers. “Why then are you crying like some poor little girl, who begs to be picked up and carried? Who holds her mother back when she tries to hurry?” We do not want to listen to these children because it will distract us from what makes us. There is little breathing space in fighting. This is also true for me to an extreme degree. My desire has been dealt with roughly. Their mutual concern and love for her was a sign of their love for each other. Said one to the other: “Obey to the end this word I put upon your attention so that you can win, for me, the lovely girl.” But they never showed the girl back home. Tell me now, you Muses, how fire was first thrown. We were supposed to be thinking of love as property, but wanting the girl to wake up, I never did. Drinking from a spring of dark running water, willing her to wake, in the heart of each one was a spirit untremulous, and he wants me to watch, he is furious. Your mother nursed you on gall! You have no pity! This is a failure to be. You would gather in groups to have fun, to be rational, yet the desire in your heart is to watch the grim encounter.
III.
My mother, an unearthly noise, I could not see her face as wolves make havoc among lambs over who gets to hold the black earth, burdened, so as not to hear them, by the works of men, I turned to the neighbor’s son huddled inside his movie, he in the dust face downward was also true for me, mouth open to the bright spear, willing him to wake, the heart in my breast was balanced, between two ways, was pathetic, as if he were my child, as if where the beating is enclosed in the arch of the muscle is a failure to ration, to be, a lowing bell, a bellowing.
