I imagine your hair in a sweet roll bun. My father standing spellbound by its cinnamon scent. Unpinning its tresses with eager eyes. Picking out a brand new home in an effort to buy bad cancer out. A world of love revolving on an empty bobbin spinning its way toward burials a doctor saw but could not stop. He must have despised those hospital halls-- cold segues to eternity. Your red lips parted and firm like tendrils of an octopus. Muggy sex with every moment drying as you gathered wits. Your arms fumbling behind your back, knotting an apron beside the stove. Hauling my bright white body cast up stairs that stretched like sloppy snakes. Leaning on those final suppers-- bibles and shrouds of smiles in tact-- martini olives in a drink on toothpicks made of troubled times. My father never speaks of you. Grieving thieves of vacant lots are red ants crawling up a tree. I wonder if you fought black death, creme de la creme de diable stoked, finding a place, a cubby hole, to hug your youth before that unearned exit won and loving him was re-runs of a muscial with Casablanca's fog in tow. by Janet I. Buck |
