Eating Together/Sandcastles [after Kim Addonizio]

At 14, for the first time            
my mother suggested a movie night-                
  'Sandcastles', starring                
   Jan Michael Vincent.              
               
It was a strange experience,          
  eating in the living room                
  versus dining table;          
still, space lingered between us.              
               
Being uncomfortable                
is a bad amplifier:                
  low, so you cut it up,                
  loud, so you cut it down;                
               
regardless how hard you adjust                
frequencies just won't balance.              
               
My mother's tears pooled,                
  inched down her silhouette              
  into the plate on her lap -                
               
I blamed the romance scenes                
  and awkwardly blushed.                
               
We were in separate towers              
as silence masticated minutes              
too unusual to understand.              
               
I re-watched it years later              
long after my mother's castle collapsed              
under a tide of death;      
( something she had known      
was coming for her at the time. )            
               
I never understood why;              
it wasn't a pleasant memory              
  yet something compelled me      
  to watch anyway.                
               
Somehow, in that flickering              
moment of vintage film-              
I realized it hadn't been the romance;                
               
but, failure she experienced              
  not knowing how to relax                
  or enjoy her own child;              
words between us praying              
to escape their respective towers              
  while they had a chance:                
               
something we both felt              
too helpless to talk about-            
  so ate in silence instead           
  years after 'The End '.                
               
~      
       
#KimAddonizio