The End of Act III
"The world's your oyster,
but the future's your clam"
--The Jam
Scratching away
the years with my fingernails,
I dream of short sentences
tangled up with verbs.
A strange mouth robs
my speech as I listen
to it call my name.
Yesterday, I drove
through dusty photos
without a breath.
A winter of words
gathers its snow
in my mouth.
It's still cold
under the tongue.
A lonely signature,
I walk among
the furniture, yet chairs
are arranged differently.
An automatic nodding
is all that is left
as people carry
proverbs into my house.
I spend an afternoon
trying to wash
the smell of violet
out of my clothes.
My soul crouches
on the flat of my palm.
Your Father's Den
Count backwards to one summer night. You and I
reclined on lawn chairs in your father's yard,
listening to the whir of the pool filter and shining
flashlights at the stars. You told me that the stars
were actually beams from flashlights of other kids in
far away galaxies. I said that you had gone to see
Star Wars one too many times. When the mosquitoes
became annoying, we followed the sounds of jazz coming
from the wood-paneled den in the house. With the door
cracked opened and light oozing across the floor, we
spied your father hugging his upright bass. We sat
cross-legged in the hallway and listened to the smooth
timbre of wound steel slapping against acoustic
mahogany. Your father's fingers looked like a hairy,
drunk tarantula as they walked up and down the fret
board. You whispered that he often cradled the bass
in his arms at night, holding it like he held your mother
before she had died. You never talked much about your
mother dying and I never saw your father cry.
Later, as I walked the maple-lined street toward home,
I still heard the faint sound of your father's playing
echoing in each step I took. When I got home, I
wrapped my arms around my mother's waist and cried the
tears I heard in your father's den.
