There’s a town in McLean county, IL—
not to be confused with the neighborhood
of Normaltown in Athens, GA, the latter
immortalized by the new wave band called
The B-52’s in their song “Deadbeat Club,”
with lyrics about teenagers having nothing
better to do than loaf around in little
cafes. How incredulous to see how normal
was supposed to be the families we watched
when finally (last house on the street)
we got black & white TV— father & mother
& five or six children living in small
towns, working on the farm or at
the lumberyard, running in at the sound
of the dinner bell; saying grace, saying
goodnight before one by one the lights
in the upstairs windows went out. Normal
was supposed to be young newlyweds
giving up their honeymoon money
to help keep a local bank solvent during
the Depression, & a second class
angel in a crumpled linen smock
dispatched to save an upstanding family
man from falling into despair. What
could we call what happened almost every
day in our home when I was growing up?
For the longest time, I thought
what we had was normal— waking up to see
breakfast dishes hurled to the floor,
the percolator raised like a lamp
in grandmother’s hand, mother cowering
by the door. Wild sobbing an orchestral
accompaniment to blows rained on a wall.