Day Mattar, “The Big C”

Author: Poetry Editor

November 18, 2013

This week, a poem by Day Mattar.

THE BIG ‘C’

Steam from my tea rose
and disappeared. There we were,
in the living room, quiet, when
it exposed itself. Revealed

its bare face. ‘C.’ ‘C,’ in our house,
where bulbs from Christmas trees
had buoyed. It wasn’t hateful,
didn’t spite or grudge. It just was.

It was enormous, like a full belly,
or silence in music. Dad left
the room, needed more tea.
He left in his white dressing gown.

Mum cried at it, was angry,
confused with it. Why is it
here? What does it want with us?
Dad opened the door,

No one takes me seriously
around here anymore, he said,
wearing my sister’s fake eyelashes, and
an almost straight face.

——

DAY MATTAR is a Graduate of English Literature and Creative Writing, in LJMU, Liverpool, UK; and a queer, Radical-Faerie, kitchen-witch, who hopes to return to Brooklyn, next year, to study poetry at post-grad level, and fall in love all over again.