San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
STATE LINES California Poetry
A sense of wistfulness permeates Melissa Stein’s poetry, especially when she tackles the topic of love. In this poem, probably addressed to an ex-lover, the speaker compares her family to a pack of cigarettes as a roundabout way of describing her persistent longing. It’s a strange metaphor. I think Stein creates it to illustrate a personality flaw in her speaker, who evidently can’t discuss her feelings directly. As we learn more about the family — singed, exhaled and blown away — we come to understand why the speaker has failed the romantic relationship. Stein offers a shred of hope in the poem’s final few lines, so perhaps this is a relationship that can still be rekindled. I’d barter your life for a brief orange flame and a lungful of peace. My whole family was like that, tobaccostained, curling a little at the edges.
Singed. Whenever the wind rose, a few blew away, easy as an exhale, and we let go in the way one does with paper, smoke.
Until the box lay empty, on its side, in some dump. Now and then cold hands would fumble it, in hope.
“Portrait of my family as a pack of cigarettes” is from “Terrible Blooms” (c) 2018 by Melissa Stein. The poem appears with the permission of Copper Canyon Press. All rights reserved. Melissa Stein is the author of two poetry collections, “Rough Honey” and “Terrible Blooms.” She lives in San Francisco.
David Roderick is the author of the poetry collections “Blue Colonial” and “The Americans.” He is co-founder of Left Margin Lit: A Home for the Literary Arts, in Berkeley.