Little Reviews: Poem for Tuesday

Fathers and Sons
By David Mason

Some things, they say,
one should not write about. I tried
to help my father comprehend
the toilet, how one needs
to undo one's belt, to slide
one's trousers down and sit,
but he stubbornly stood
and would not bend his knees.
I tried again
to bend him toward the seat,

and then I laughed
at the absurdity. Fathers and sons.
How he had wiped my bottom
half a century ago, and how
I would repay the favor
if he would only sit.

Don't you—
he gripped me, trembling, searching for my eyes.
Don't you— but the word
was lost to him. Somewhere
a man of dignity would not be laughed at.
He could not see
it was the crazy dance
that made me laugh,
trying to make him sit
when he wanted to stand.

--------

From this week's New Yorker.

I had a nice Monday -- chores in the morning, then I met Vertigo for lunch at the Corner Bakery, where we discussed our respective fandom's insanities and I was jealous because she's making plans to go to Europe. Then I walked over to Target to get laundry detergent and was of course distracted by the in-progress Halloween display -- Skelanimals toys, light-up owls and pumpkins, the usual variety of witch and ghost decorations, and this year's Kelly dolls (I don't collect Kelly but I can't resist her when she's wearing a bat cape or she's dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein and has green skin). Also, since the store is renovating, they had a lot of clothes on sale for 50% off and more, and I grabbed a couple of nightshirts.

I can take or leave Heroes these days, but my kids wanted to watch the season premiere, so we did. Is there a web site somewhere with a quick-and-easy chart of who's alive, who's dead, who was dead but is back either through some superpower ex machina or as a sibling/clone/possessed body? I feel like I need a chart -- I can't even remember who slept with whom anymore. And I do NOT want a chart of all the product placements, because I am certainly not going to decide whether to play Guitar Hero or eat at Legal Seafood or watch Crossing Jordan based on mentions on this show, and I've lost track of how many mobile phones have been promoted on the series.

Spoilers: I thought the Haitian was dead and so did the rest of my family; I guess we never really found out what happened to him but we all had it in our heads that he was gone. I am irritated that they dispatched Danko so quickly, because even though there was a lot I didn't like last season, he was consistently interesting and more important just plain consistent. Unlike Claire, who just makes me roll my eyes. She says she wants a normal life, then literally throws it out the window. She says she wants to be normal, but she doesn't shed a single tear for her roommate, who may have been self-absorbed and judgmental but she wasn't nasty the way Claire's dead cheerleader friend was first season and she can sit around being flip in the cafeteria the next day...she seems just as callous and selfish to me as the roommate. I'd had enough of Matt's marital woes the first season, too.

Hiro remains the saving grace for me -- it's adorable that he fixes up his sister with Ando ~~since he can't have Ando himself~~ -- the entire scene with Heroes for Hire, the little girl and the kitty is adorable, it makes it easier to swallow yet more revisionist backstory. I still like Ali Larter, but I really miss Niki, Jessica, and their relationship with Micah; what had been an impressive collection of strong mothers earlier on the series has increasingly become a collection of father-child stories, which is frustrating. Just once, couldn't we see a marriage get stronger (rather than someone exploiting someone) because of a latent power, and couldn't we see someone using a power purely for good -- healing the sick and refusing to be intimidated!