The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Holly Day
Lithogenous
He screams at the car again and I feel my skin growing hard, cold my face doesn’t move as I fish another beer out of the refrigerator and bring it out to him in the yard. He takes the beer from me with a grease- covered hand
says something about how this car could last forever so long as some stupid broad
wasn’t allowed to drive it. I feel my skin turning to stone beneath my sweater, growing cold even in the hot summer sun I tell him I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened, I’m sorry. the sun starts to set and the car still won’t move, he says he’s going out, not to wait up for him, not to let anyone else touch the fucking car. He gets in his own car and I go back inside the house, make myself a sandwich, turn on the TV. Later, I’ll call up the bus company, ask the operator how to get to work from where I am, maybe look up a couple of local mechanics in the phone book I’ll think about calling them, but I won’t. Cyhyraeth
The next time I see my mother, it will be because I’m dying close to death, she will stand at the side of my bed put her cool hands on my burning forehead bring me soup. She will look just like she did when I drew that last picture of her when I was a child how I tried to draw her with my imperfect hands: too beautiful and too young to be so sick. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |