2005 LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE FINALIST

Eating History     by Carole Wade Lundberg

We know the stories:

The king is dead; long

live the king. And

farther back in time

--if not in evolution--

sons who slay fathers

feast on their hearts

hoping to ingest some

secret power. Each

woman in her secret

heart acknowledges

the corollary: Daughters

of ancient queens

drinking mother’s

power with her blood.

Tragic tales, stuff of

gothic novels, the worst

sort of magical thinking

but take that gothic shovel

and unearth the allegory:

Find yourself at the kitchen

table with your daughter;

note with sudden clarity

how she probes your thoughts,

your history, your motives

like a sleuth uncovering

the crime that is her

life (and which you

have allowed to occur

without clues)

Think also about those

endless conversations

she has had with her

sisters--out of your

hearing certainly, but

fully transcribed by

your intuition--

those conversations

in which they explore

with urgent cruelty

the separate truths

of their history

dissecting, digesting

with words the Mother,

the Father, Life

before singular

and stellar event

of their own births

feeding each other

bits of information

as if the outcome

of some crucial

epiphany depended

upon their ingesting

each scrap.

Remember how even now

when your sisters

come to visit--grey

haired as aging queens

--the litany of succession

begins: “Did you know?”

Did she tell you?”

devouring with each

mouthful of streusel

each bite of tuna

casserole, the particular

rag, bone, hank of hair

that placed us here.

Carole Wade Lundberg

Carol Wade Lundberg of Penngrove, California teaches creative writing at Santa Rosa Junior College and in private workshops. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in several journals, including Poetry New York, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Albatross, Jane’s Stories, Square Lake, and Green Mountains Review.