July 11: Mother and Child, Little Man, Matthea Harvey, "Cheap Cloning Process Lets You Have Your Own Little Elvis"

He [Ives] prayed, his eyes upon the painting of the Mother and Child near the altar.  He prayed for his dead adoptive father, and for his mother and father whom he had never known.  For all the things he never knew.

This paragraph comes one page before the end of the book.  Ives has made his peace with God.  Now, Ives returns to the prayers he said when he was young.  He accepts that he will never fully understand the universe in all its complexity.  Yet, he has trust and faith in the goodness of God.

That's what I'm going to do today.  I'm giving my worries and cares away.  I know I'm in control of nothing.  My sister's life is in God's hands.  This morning, she was Skyping with my parents, and she said to my six-year-old son, "Hey, little man."  That makes me incredibly happy.

This morning, I ran a two-mile race with my daughter (she placed first in her age bracket, I placed fourth).  Then I went to a parade in a neighboring city.  Tonight, I'm taking my kids and nieces and nephews to another fireworks show on the shores of a lake.

I'm not going to get all profound today.  I want to maintain that happiness I felt earlier.  Thus, Matthea Harvey's final poem for this week makes me smile.  I hope it will do the same for you.

Saint Marty is going to buy some kettle corn tonight, sit back on a blanket by a lakeshore, and enjoy the light show in the sky.

Cheap Cloning Process Lets You
Have Your Own Little Elvis

by:  Matthea Harvey

If the real Elvis was a racecar,
the little matchbox-sized Elvis we buy
are the half-galaxies of other cars'
odometers seen through a cab window
at night.  When my Elvis does a hip swivel
(like a bobblehead dog on the dash, he's game,
will swivel all day long) it doesn't cause
a full-on swoon, just a tiny pinprick
of desire felt in the arch of the foot.
Like a lozenge when you want a meal.
The Elvi are smart not to serenade us
with "Baby, If You'll Give Me all of Your Love"
on their nanoguitars--we'd crush them
with one corresponding hip spiral of our own.
They stick to strumming "Dainty Little Moonbeams"
while we smoke cigarettes and cloak them
in smoke.  My friend, who's strangely loyal
to the Original Elvis timeline, maintains hers
nicely, smoothes baby oil onto his black hair.
Using a microscope, she's already sewn him
a tiny sequined jumpsuit for his later fatter years
and to that end she deep-fries breadcrumbs stuffed
with a dab of peanut butter and one Baco Bit.
Once I caught mine manhandling a sprig of parsley,
pretending it was Priscilla.  Every month or so
we meet at a playground on our lunchbreak
and corral them all in a sandbox.  Fights flare up
instantaneously over who's the real Elvis,
who's an imposter, and while they pull on
each other's pompadours, we munch on
our pastrami sandwiches, imagining
what's up next:  a tiny Jesus, or a mini
Michael Jackson wearing Disco Barbie's glove.

Love me tender...