after the credits the screen is dark but you’re still seated elbows touching holding the story open between you after the song
the commercials roll but your hands are still tapping 4/4 on the steering wheel later the words tumble out while you stir spaghetti sauce and your feet tap under the table as days are retold with parmesan and garlic bread after the drive you shut the engine off but it pings pops hot water pools underneath, the exhale after three states of air-conditioning later, you find agates sand broken periwinkles a crumpled map the past nine months kicked under floor mats and wedged between seats your daughter laughs and a face you’ve forgotten that she’s never met is here in her smile but also in her dance swagger presence you try to explain how she is your grandmother (in only the best ways) but you are also telling about coupons and visiting the long forgetting cruelty and hurt and it all lives in your precious girl’s laugh we've come from our woods where there are ghosts empty mines some collapsed others red rock ruins stories of miners and our family who traveled into the copper heart others who never saw the sun again your children climb on the poor rock laughing as they keep sliding back down they squeal at a spider they reach for ripe berries in the stamp mill walls we picnic in the rubble and plan a ride to the stamp sands as if they were a playground not a ghostyard and in the car later on the radio you hear the capital has fallen the war is over but in the arms reaching up to the airport door closing the past twenty years are never ending an old war morphing yet again at night your son asks questions he wonders who will die first he wonders what life will be like after he wonders at the anguish he might feel he wonders at the emptiness of dying you wonder too like when you’re driving and there’s a wreck and you shudder knowing your turn will come and you wonder: will you end or will you echo you don’t say any of this though to him you only say that death is scary inevitable he pinches his eyes shut and whispers that these thoughts always come at night and this is why he needs you he swears there are ghosts here good ghosts, you promise he rolls his eyes he knows it all ends but still he wonders how
1 Comment
Nancy Gordon
8/16/2021 04:23:58 pm
Oh my love. You’ve brought me along after all.
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AboutWhile living in Mexico, I joked that speaking Spanish forced me to be far more Zen about life: Since I could only speak in the present tense, I was forced to just live in that present tense. Archives
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