Irene Han
Nativity
Before the Baroque painters’ Madonna, even my mother
paused and stood for a while. That ineffable expression
she wore in front of the woman in chiaroscuro
I could not decipher. Cast in a hard gallery light,
her face, too, was like the mask of a saint.
My mother would not recognize signs of the Virgin
so I wonder, was she looking in the scene for the husband
as I was looking at her outside the oil on canvas?
The picture of one who could carry, deliver, and raise
the child without manger, ox, ass, or
men bearing gifts.
Irene Han reads “Nativity”
Vanitas
At fifty, a flip switched for my father.
He saw a chance at a second life. Or he saw death.
I wonder when. For as long as I remember,
the stained glass clock in the living room had stopped.
I wonder when my father took it down, a souvenir
from our family travels abroad, replaced the dead batteries,
rehung the piece, and if, then, he saw besides it
through the window, school kids playing in an open field,
felt his own children far and grown, the house half-empty,
his mid-life not what he had hoped, and noticed
the blue glass bird pendulum
resuming its small range of motion,
my father, who was good at mending things.
Irene Han reads “Vanitas”
Irene Han is a Brooklyn-based poet. She received a BA in English from Stanford University.