Emilie Jelinek

Terms and Conditions
 
 
You are the box in the attic where my childhood is kept. 
           The long dark table that trapped us in conversation.
You are the hyena mocking the placidity of the herd. 
           The pull, the magnetism, the music. 
           The loophole outsmarting the system.
You are the fist that slams down hard on the table. 
           The clap of thunder that thumps our hearts awake. 
You are the heat of the hearth around which we gather.
           The gleaming gold cup for which we compete.

You are the letter in the box. 

           The slanted handwriting demanding obedience. 
You are the terms and conditions in the familial contract. 
           The small print threatening legal action.
You are the one who provided. 
You taught me to run.
 
 
—————
 
 
Vltava
 
 
You are the source, rising from a fractured space 
to seep into a place where tenderness might grow.
 
In this moment I see you, clear as a Bohemian sky 
in summer, your smile still wide as its sun.
 
We listen to your vinyl records as I dance to the scratch
and spin of a folksong – something about cherries – 
 
in a chorus of female voices that I, your favourite daughter, 
do not understand. In this moment, you are still my father;
 
an orchard of sun-warmed notes, the strum of your guitar, 
the thrill of Twist & Shout sung too loud, and Tereza in her
 
campfire glow. Today your absence flows steady as the Vltava,
its course penned in semi-quavers as two flutes begin: 
 
a cold stream meets a warm one, their confluence as the strings 
come in. Music becomes river, river becomes music, a force stirs 
 
your spirit’s bed, eddies a primal longing. And I see it: 
the castles, nymphs, woods and fields of a fairytale I long for, still.
 
 
—————
 
 
This could be a fairytale
 
 
set in a wood, where once you threw us into a lake,
upon a time. Years later, we watched fish floating
 
speckled white with disease, silently mouthing 
help over and over with an eye on the heavens. 
 
‘They’ll sink or swim,’ you said to our mother. 
You baited her, waited until she flagged, heckled
 
her with your wolf laugh until she buckled. 
You stood triumphant, neck muscles taut 
 
as clenched knuckles, hoping for a come-back 
or another reason to turn. Your place in our family 
 
was never in question. In the lake, fish were rising
wanly from the gloom, yielding themselves 
 
in slow circles as they surrendered, wide-eyed, 
stunned at the manner of their own drowning.
 
 
—————
 
 
The Sky Around My Father
 
 
pulls itself in, 
makes itself a little 
smaller to make room 
for him. 
 
He needs more 
space and there is not enough 
room for both sky
and sun
 
there is no space 
big enough for his things:
TVs, tractor-mower, clarinet, 
an orchard of simple chords
in major keys
 
and the sail
of his changing moods. 
It’s not safe 
yet, to let itself go
above the fields around his house
 
and so it shrinks, 
offers him only the light 
he needs and I’ve seen
how it constellates 
 
in the bones of the place, 
how it watches him
counting down
the shadows 
of his days. 

7 Terms and Conditions
8 Vltava
9 Mother Tongue
10 Song for an Estranged Father
11 Pietà
12 This could be a fairytale
13 Portrait of Fear as a Shape-shifting, Flesh-eating Beast
14 Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins
15 Frontline Idiosyncrasies
16 The Battle at Aubers Ridge
17 Dissolution
18 Diagnosis
19 The Envelope
20 Forecast  (1)
22 Rusalka’s Other Song
23 Forecast  (2)
24 My Father Washes His Hands of Me
25 Firstborn
26 Explaining You as an Extinction Event to My Children
27 The Wolf at the Window
28 Leaving the Dock at Ostend, July 1968
30 Ostinato in Something Minor
31 The Sky Around My Father
 
32 Acknowledgements & notes