Poetry

Couldn’t see the moon 
til the damn barn burned down. 
Ooze of light beaming milky silver 
over the bed’s leftover sheets – 
like strips of a tattered slip, 
or ribbons stitched to pointé shoes 
spinning in soot. Ash clung to the walls, 
seen best in the residual lack of darkness 
after a fingertip strokes the hips of the rafters. 
The bones clung to solidity. We took 
a canister and burned them too, made sure 
nothing was left behind, we wanted to shine 
so bright, wanted some part of us, 
after all, to wind up living.  

Lighter in trembling hand
lifted to Marlboro caught
in twitching lips.
Anticipation and flame mirrored
by Haldol-glazed eyes
with nervous glances at Nurse, back-turned,
who spins suddenly to scold.

“Sorry, didn't know the rules.”

But he does, in his hospital gown,
smokes away on his fourth in fifteen minutes.
Head-jerks left and right
as Bellevue ward-peers watch
with nicotine hunger.

I flick the Bic back in my pocket.
Promise to never pass it again.

“See you tomorrow, Dad.”

Tomorrow….

I didn’t ask to lift the sheet
or slide out the ball-bearing bin
that held Dad’s body
in the grey of the M.E.’s basement.

“They only do that in movies,” 
says man in yellow scrubs.
Hands me a Polaroid instead.

Swollen and pale but still Dad,
sort of,
even with my eyes half a-squint.

And now, years later,
I wish
I had asked
to lift
the
sheet. 

don't remember
being scared
there
in the skull room
where
i went to look for watering can
feed flowers on grandfather's grave
there
in the skull room
where
wooden cubbies  cob-webbed
held single skulls 
along wall vaulting fifteen-feet high
in wet alcove
side a centuries-old church
top a steep hill
with three cemetery rings concentric
but
my five years
could not
understand
the skull room
where
next day
i thought i ought
return
so walked
one mile at five years
along dirt road
alone
back
to the skull room

to look for a shovel
for grandfather's grave.

the colors would change with light: 
not as all paintings must,
but as a river suddenly flush
with wild jumping fish.

                     pixie cut girl dashing around naked
                     me shy and shocked
                     peppermint ice cream 
                     pink cheeks

She would turn mildly
in a tar-crack driveway and mumble.
She would take my folded poem
in her bare white hand
and read it aloud, quickly,
as if to her self.

                       trapped together
                       sweaty gas station bathroom
                       tears slide down 
                       they’ll leave without us
                       your eyes hang low 
                       like a hound dog’s

She would laugh loudly,
the har har pitching out
of the artwork,
startling quiet onlookers.

                        you sneak in
                        take my cloisonne bracelet 
                        the very gift you had given me
                        i ignore you for months cruelly
                        anger dripping down my throat 
                        dirty honey

If my sister were a painting
I would side-eye
her cut-off shorts, 
upturned mouth
and the movement of hand on hip, 
- something of mine, invisible in that hand-
the elbow, a fine point.

                        i dare you 
                        hot green peppers 
                        again and more out of the jar
                        i goad you giddy 
                        yes twenty
                        you swallow startled
                        and we laugh 

Wide feline eyes look down on me, 
while fingers reach out
striking the redhead of a match
against the slate museum wall.

                         Later I see the clever-shy details of your face:
                         you gently bite your lip, hold back a smile, 
                         raise your eyebrows in expectation. 
                         You make me melty cheesy toast in the little oven.

She sets my poem afire.
She dissolves through a camouflage
of dark background and
pin-stick oil spots.

                You teach vulnerable children, 
                the cherishing smile in your voice;
                You get married in your backyard 
                and we feed carrots to the horses 
                lingering at the back gate. 

I watch the blue, the yellow
the orange-candy heat.
The canvas curls up,
ribbons in its frame.

                 When I talk about childhood misdemeanors, 
                 you are silent, mysterious.

                      I leave the building, scorched fingertips.