This poem is called "Memory."
And the title-- the first word of the poem is it's,
I-T apostrophe S. And it refers to the word
of the title, "Memory."
"It's like watching an underwater show through glass,
where girls share an air hose and ride huge fish.
My father drove us to see it in the new 56 Buick.
His gaudy Florida shirt tattooed to his chest with sweat.
While we kids wailed on one another in the back,
read road signs and whined in concert
until his backhand swung blindly over the top of the seat,
clipping the unlucky one caught in its arc.
And that one would cry quietly to himself, well,
for five minutes.
The rest of us shut up.
Now, in this overlay of silences, my father dead, me
at my mother's house for a brief visit,
I recall our lives seemed perfectly on the surface
even if my sister had nervous attacks,
and we were warned about strange men who
would try to pick us up.
Of course, we were taken along by events
without grasping what's happening until later, when
memory gives them shape, that may not encompass the facts.
But today, I see my whole childhood
in the curves and fluttering of the girls who
had learned to smile while holding their breath.
And though it must be only a reflection on the glass,
behind them, I see my father drowning in the tank."