SUBJECT>Not Your POSTER>Laurel EMAIL> DATE>1111781284 IP_ADDRESS>156.77.108.71 PASSWORD>aaFRbor6/KzWk PREVIOUS> NEXT> 85466 85484 85532 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Not Your

Here, even the dead are alive.
Watch her pin ghosts out to dry. Mama. Not your.
Mine. No wind, yet sheets writhe
on the line. And her apron flaps and flaps
against her thigh, a wing
that fails to fly. Bereft of breeze,
I already told you. Yet restless, the tree rattles
its glass skeleton; in the sun’s violent
shine, the bottles glint like eyes,
unblinking. The washtub opens its mouth
to the sky, another, bluer eye—as when Icarus
melted and plummeted, no one
and everyone saw what happened--suds bubbling
over like spit. So tell me why he dies
and dies Tell me why we didn’t just heed
her when she chided: Dinnertime.
The thump-thump-thump of his heels, a pulse
louder than my heart. My punishment, a knife
that cuts out light. The eye that glares down
from above blackens. Green becomes a scent,
mown grass. The orange road out of here pales
to dust. And mama, in the dark, big as this house, stirs
and stirs the pot. Mama: The teapot’s accusing
hiss, the curtains anxious shift, the floorboards creak,
a slow, weighted progress, the mattress’s heaved
sigh. When I trip, she does not pick me up.
I press a silent cricket into her palm.
She never says thank you or dinnertime.