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Tag: loss

The Fluid Dynamics of Personal Hygiene

Once you’ve squozen the recommended
allotment of shampoo relative to hair-girth

into your palm, be careful when letting go
the bottle for its pop-back-reset,

or the mintfused molecules will panic and,
with eucalyptous hands, cling to each

other in a desperate, schlurpy retreat back
into the globuly hive, leaving only an

invigorating, sulfite-free residue in the air,
your hair plastered, and unwashed.

Like the deep-cleansing morning I spent on the
front porch with my coffee and my dog and

suddenly remembered the day my mother changed
the locks on all the doors and my father,

and I hadn’t even showered.

I, Too, Am Richly Stained

when in a moment
of inattention your
most precious and richly
stained coffee mug falls shattered
to the floor it knows only
that it is broken
and cannot cry
but desperately
wishes it could

Worldview

I screamed
when I first saw him,
a bounding black cloud
thundering toward my horizon:
a boy looking for a friend.

He stayed with us
until that day
I had to stack the shelves and sweep the floors,
direct customers to the canned
whole chickens in aisle five

while They did whatever it is They do
to friends who once escaped the yard
to find
me at school during recess and
the principal let me walk him home but
who can’t walk anywhere anymore.

So, I get it.

But when my son’s eyes are red-rimmed and
welling with rage at yet one more
failure / betrayal / Talk
with a father trying too hard
because

he knows what’s coming demands more than
paper-or-plastic or expired milk or stray carts and
his son bears the brunt of that fear until
their ties twist taut and love becomes
a strained and brittle mask,

please forgive my snicker at your dog-parent sticker.

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