Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

First Daughter

At first you will know her as yours only by a vague contrariness
That characterizes everyone else you love, among others you 
     and myself.
You will see in her your marriage--that is there will be more
Of her mother than you thought you bargained for.
You will find her set of mind, her greed and resolution to rule
Rival your own. You will also find them less fully veneered, that 
     will come later, you will see to it.
You will find in her a new definition of fatigue, reverberant
Of Quantico and if you pursue the thought you will remember 
     Pocohantas,
That she did everything except what Powhattan asked or 
     required.
You will find--the most difficult thing--that she is someone
Other than you. That will not change.

You will also find--this must not be sentimental--
That you begin to shun telephones, and newspapers even more
Than you already do, because you will find that there are some 
      words
On the telephone you will never want to hear
And because you will find so many stories about children

You cannot bear to read but can't blind your eye against.
You will consider another for insurance and understand after 
     that
The words unique and loss. It will be an occasion when your 
     mind will be fully alive without experience or experiment.

You will discover, one of the most precious things, your 
     ignorance
Of the natural world, because it will become
Necessary not any longer to disguise it.
The new leverage on your mother will offset any excess of 
      humility.

You will learn the pain of revenge, as you revenge
By a newly raised standard of truth the previous lies, the ones
You were born to and fed with and live by. You will possibly 
     forgive.

There is a flower by the name of meadowsweet, I saw it this year 
     for the first time. We picked some.
I regret that, there is not enough of it where we live--
We should have forborne. Spiraea latifolia, the book says
Not to be confused with meadow queen or meadow rue,

Growing in old fields, native to the Southern Appalachians.
The flower I will have planted over me.
You will find, you now have, your meadowsweet--the book says
"The brown fruits, which persist after flowering, are a 
     distinctive feature."
You will learn persisting.

Ellen

To examine your flaws in detail and with a clear mind
is why first and foremost I ask you to marry me. I want 
     you to regard and scrutinize me in an equal way.
I promise to afford you a decent burial, along the lines of 
     your request,
in earth or air, if you go first, unlikely as that is, the 
     request
to be provided me, notarized and a copy set aside
for safekeeping with a trustworthy friend
before we proceed with this madness.

I will not have any halls or Tinker Bell attendants
and we must be married on a Tuesday. It should also be
reasonably private because so much joy unconfined to the 
     close at heart
would disfocus the importance of our giving our lives to 
     each other.
Our lives.

There will be no alcohol, or perhaps only a single cup per 
     participant;
what we have is enough, between us, to do without more, 
     which is why I love you to where I have to say this
and write this down and stand behind it--
until the day I die and in the face of all the past and 
     future.

Socratic Method

Philosophy, I tell you this much, sir,
philosophy, that's my first love. The spirit needs philosophy.
But the stomach takes precedence, so I'm driving this cab.

I was a shepherd, you can believe that, eleven years old in 
     Greece.
I couldn't read a word. Then my uncle paid for school, and 
     Plato,
Aristotle, all the rest--I made friends of them, sir. I fell in love 
     to stay.

And now in your Big Opera, I tell you this much--
The City, it has no patience for simple-minded strategies--
double negative. Not for nobody. Look at Queens--
a maze, Queens, a maze in a maze. But you work at it, sir, you 
     learn to get around.
Where not to go. You make yourself a buck.

So my kind gentleman, an inquiry--if our positions were 
     reversed,
me the rich man in the back, new shoes, Italian suit, English 
     shirt, French tie
and you the poor cab driver, hardworking, honest, but still very 
     poor, cloth cap--
what would you be imagining now I might give you for a tip?
A generous tip like you unquestionably deserve.

American Folk Painters at the Whitney

As if their pigments had been blended with time and childhood 
     ghosts,
spirits collected sleeping in strange beds, looking for home.

As if I were the wax lost in the casting kiln,
and the bell of my self stands sentinel in this high-raftered hall
to watch the sulkies and stern-wheelers spinning and gaining no 
     ground.

As if all these fine, thin women in their weekday languor
came to be spots of light, performance art, a firefly dance on 
     film.

As if the faces looking out from these paintings
had eyes and mouths that moved, but froze just before you locked in on
them, and you would never know for sure
if people were hostage inside these canvases
and fed with pewter spoons a broth of bones that kept them just 
     alive.

Michael Parish was born in 1943 in Decatur, Illinois and lived in Germany and around the U.S. as part of an Army family. He was a University Scholar at Princeton and graduated from Yale Law School to commence a 35 year career on Wall Street doing finance and energy-related legal work. He has published a number of articles on finance and energy law as well as stories and poems in Ploughshares, The Green Bag, Fodderwing, Parenthesis, Adam's Rib and Apostrophe. Parish won first prize in the W.B. Yeats Society of New York 2003 poetry contest.
Parish, recently retired, now lives in Oradell, New Jersey in a house which backs up on a nature preserve and offers splendid bird watching.
"First Daughter" was published in Ploughshares (Vol. 7 (2), 1981). "American Folk Painters at the Whitney" first appeared in Apostrophe (Summer 1999).