Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Lines Excised from the 5th Poem About Your Death

Then you said, I'm not really your mother. How, when you took off your shirt, I saw your black-winged bra cupping your freckled breasts. The Wednesday when you told me you couldn't answer my call last night because you had someone's cock in your mouth. The script you wrote for me for valium, so you could get some yourself. The part where you kept your fingers under your eyes to stop the mascara from running. How your hair got in my mouth on the ferris wheel. How you were supposed to engaged, but the obituary said single. The part where you were a pole dancer. The part where you fucked the hospital janitor. The pink lampshade with the feather trim. Your son's pencil drawings of rats on your refrigerator. How you cried every time in the same monotone when your boyfriends broke up with you. The matching bitchy cats under your sofa, your sink. The poster of a pastel garden just above your toilet that appeared to be painted by an extremely depressed grandmother. The part where your pregnant patient hung herself. How you counted to three in a voice as sweet as any hypnotist to get your son to put his video games away. How he has your enormous bronze eyes, the eyes of a busy victim. The sickly yellow light above your stove, how it made us all look bloodless, dying. How we looked in that polaroid from the party, curled up on the black velvet sofa, the white of your big teeth matching the backs of my hands. The dislocated, sudden shadows a flash makes. How in all my dreams of you, you are wearing a yellow flowered scarf around your head, although you never wore a scarf. How you swoop slowly down from turbulent clouds as if you are riding a floating dinner plate. What you really said to me. How you made me my first martini, and I was disappointed. The part where you came on to my psychiatrist and he turned you down. How your insides ached afterwards, as if you'd been hit with a shovel in the stomach. How I tried to pretend to sympathize. The drugs we shared on that couch. The kiss we nearly shared on that couch. How you said you were worried about the stereo speakers, Is sound coming out, or going in? Are we being recorded? How I told you to close your eyes and it would soon get better. How you wanted to ride the bumper cars three times in a row. How you hit my car so hard my elbow dislocated. How it didn't, eventually, get better; none of it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is absolutely amazing. Very well done. A perfect portrait of that one person we can never quite properly describe no matter how hard we try.

-Barry Napier
www.barrynapierwriting.wordpress.com

Natasha Milburn Lalita (Novelist) said...

I absolutely love your poetry.