Parlor by Rita Dove

 

We passed through

on the way to anywhere else.

No one lived there

but silence, a pale china gleam,

and the tired eyes of saints

aglow on velvet.

Mom says things are made

to be used. But Grandma insisted

peace was in what wasn't there,

strength in what was unsaid.

It would be nice to have a room

you couldn't enter, except in your mind.

I like to sit on my bed

plugged into my transistor radio,

"Moon River" pouring through my head.

How do you use life?

How do you feel it? Mom says

things harden with age; she says

Grandma is happier now. After the funeral,

I slipped off while they stood around

remembering-away from all

the talking and eating and weeping

to sneak a peek. She wasn't there.

Then I understood why

she had kept them just so:

so quiet and distant,

the things that she loved.