sitting across from my
sitting across from my
almost ten year-old daughter
at a pho restaurant for her
first time, I witness the classic
moment I wish I could photograph
but literally can’t.
my phone has rung
vis a mysterious number
and a strange little girl
identifies herself and asks
to talk to my daughter.
I hand my phone over
and watch her cradle it
between her ear and shoulder
like a stub of black paper
pinioned between the jaws
of a towheaded stapler.
she nods and uh-uhs,
but otherwise doesn’t say much.
then she turns on her own phone,
positioned between her fried rice
and mango bubble tea,
and taps into it the number
this girl — a new camp friend,
it turns out — is calling from,
but still won’t yet
give me back my own phone,
despite my mimed entreaties.
she just seems to be spacing out,
listening to this person’s nonstop,
unknowable monologue,
and maintaining a monopoly
on our recording devices.
she’s holding so still it’s as if
a tableau of modern youth
has been rendered by an old master
right before my eyes,
with the accouterments of food
and technology
taking the place of fruit
and skulls and half-hidden regal dogs.
Oh, to hold before me forever
that tableau of my daughter
flicking her eyes at me
with sweet, shared exasperation,
like a coworker enduring being put on hold —
Oh, to capture and name
what that scene showed
she was on the exquisite cusp of!
adulthood is too far off, though
and so is adolescence;
no, the answer is something ineffable
that I can’t quite grasp.
but listen: a “rendering,”
according to encarta online,
means not just “a portrayal of somebody
or something in art, music, literature, or drama” — as well as
“a translation of a literary work” —
but also: “the process or business of separating.”
the etymology of “render”
comes from the latin “re dare,”
meaning “to give back.”
thus we have the famous
bible phrase that begins
“render unto caesar.”
and thus we can conceive of
artists’ renderings of real moments
as the simultaneous separation
of them from the warm embrace
of the rest of life
and the return to us
of everyone portrayed therein
over and over, in an constant
paradoxical, bittersweet exchange.
Render unto me all that’s mine, Time!
Everyone, dead and alive,
step out of art and memories and dreams!
Daughter, you will live forever!
Moments shot through with elusive meaning,
Lifetimes with loved ones,
Routines with acquaintances,
Moments with strangers — every
goddamned piece, hold fast
to your place in the big picture
and don’t succumb to the power of this poem!