The Porringer

He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth
but surrounded by enough silver
to blind someone like me.

The porringer– engraved with his name,
etched with strutting monkeys, dancing bears
prancing pigs, cats racing chariots,
elephants strumming on harps–shone on the mantle
like a beacon proclaiming princely pedigree.

Three months into our marriage he threw it
and when it missed me, it landed
on the hearth bearing a sad dent
just under the rabbit riding victoriously
atop a cumbersome cow.

Every Christmas I polished away the tarnish
on every silver trinket. By now,
the porringer was not the only damaged piece.

Years later a neuropsychiatrist walked us through
the ramifications of measles encephalitis
complicated by a high fever and a coma­–
how it differs from mental illness in every way
how it causes a processing delay
how a little work can repair old dents.

Morgan on the Couch One Last Time

He languished there, all scruff and shadow
uneager for even a bear’s growl
at his two pre-teen nephews,
curious and questioning.
Why is Uncle Morgan so tired?

How to tell them their father’s younger brother
suffered not exhaustion, but bald bipolar terror—
the kind that feeds on the sinews
of genius, eating it down to the bone.

I scurried around the house
stuffing scattered materials
blindly into my school bag,
images of possible blood all over the bathroom,
flesh fragments impaled on the wall,
stuffing it all down on our way to school.

At our return, the winter sun setting cold
across the basketball hoop, I whispered
Go make some shots before dinner.
Like a cop’s forced entry, I shoved open the door
stopped short at the hushed
serene scene, my lips
slowly leaking out a funereal prayer

oh Lord, support us all the day long
until the shadows lengthen, the evening comes…

He went home the next day. At the airport
Morgan, everything will be okay
People stopped and stared at the anguish
No, everything will not be okay. 

He finally did it
in his own backyard
while neighbors, not family, watched.

My Mother’s Cup of Caffeine

Like an obedient good daughter
I poured my mother a cup of caffeine
at the kitchen table. We sat together.
She sipped the scalding liquid as her eyes
turned toward the window
watching without seeing a grey dawn
spill into the room.

The weather turned inclement.
Schizoaffective matter leaked through a crack
onto her lap already sodden with sloughed
dead thoughts from the preceding day.
Words garbled and ground to a fine dust
settled like volcanic ash onto her skirt.

In the swirl
I saw the double helix bearing
my maiden name and hers,
my cousin’s, too, and the distinct
twist of my grandfather’s grey matter
curled around her forehead
like coiled picture wire.

I thought I should snap a photo
after the storm died down,
frame the pose
for posterity.

Linda Vigen Phillips is an award-winning author of Crazy, a verse novel based on mental illness in her family; Behind These Hands, a verse novel about a family facing a rare childhood disease called Batten; Thoughts at Crossings, an adult poetry collection about abuse; and selected poems appearing in numerous literary magazines such as The Texas Review, The California Quarterly, and The Christian Century. She is the co-founder of Charlotte Clubhouse, an international program serving persons with mental illness. She and her husband live in Savannah, GA.