My Father's Typewriter

My Father's Typewriter

I.

A Rabbi's son, he said,

pays attention and listens carefully.

I grew up and listened

to his staccato typewriter voice strike the air

and then recede

to leave me again in tension

and silence

II.

my father's typewriter,

a 1934 Remington.

Made in England, it had Hebrew keys

and a modified carriage so the type read from right to left.

Listen as the keys strike and recede

connect and release

Great claps,

abrupt, brutal like thunder

like my father's words

like the voice of the Almighty to Moses

little heart attacks

III.

the typewriter is him

distilled to a steel box

speckled gray paint

letters in Hebrew

IV.

Of all things I kept this.

The typewriter rests on a shelf in my apartment

profound and watchful,

a machine to bolt and wire letters together into meaning

V.

It meant nothing to me,

the nonsense keys and

my father's nonsense books

ancient, incomprehensible language

a puzzle, an uncracked code

defiantly unknown and secretive

like adults who whisper things

of great importance around children

I was told those lines said who we are

and who we are to God

my mind was on DiMaggio

VI.

The Rabbi's lessons briefly filled my head

then receded in tenuous silence like a spasm of pounded

    keys,

then repose.

But I did not listen.

No inspired bushes burned in me

                           I am a white page

                           no context for ancient letters

VII.

My truth is the sweaty grip of a baseball bat.

It is that moment, two steps off second, the wound body

       of the pitcher

It is anticipation of test scores and scholarships,

post-graduation job offers

a train ticket

my own apartment in Houston

VIII.

Pay attention and listen carefully

keys strike and recede

connect and release

strike and recede

connect and release

IX.

the typewriter stopped and sat idle, there, in my father's

     study.

Silent and heavy as truth it sat

its corners filled with dust until we went through his things

and of all things I kept this.

Feel its weight

              its rounded corners,

              its bumpy gray paint on your palm.

              Circle your finger round its keys suspended

              by steel rods that disappear into its great belly,

              make no sense of its letters,

              wipe dust from the chrome Remington emblem.

I cradled its profound weight to the back seat of my car.

How absurd it looked, how out of place framed in those

     post-modern curves of my car

It stared at me like an old man wrecked by a stroke,

      saying nothing.

X.

I was five.

Unheard in the doorway, I watched my father

sit at his desk

a mountain in a white shirt,

his yarmulke like the moon.

He paused, rubbed his tired eyes, stretched,

It was then that he noticed me.

He called me to him,

lifted my tiny body onto his lap facing the keys

I could not read yet.

He placed my little hands on the backs of his own

as he positioned them above the keyboard and began to type.

How something so big could move so quickly.

Arms wriggling with his movements, I laughed

at the dance of his giant hands.