This Poem was Submitted By: Doug Shy On Date: 2001-10-08 09:53:39 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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off to see another one

my mother was ignored by hers for one full year she was a ghost whose chains could never rattle loud enough to wake the blind in torment. i could imagine grabbing blindly for the nearest solid object, something to provide a sense of stability, and there what huge variety: sharecroppers home in rural indiana 1943. she had a choice between a heavy handled round of black pig-iron or a broom and just to keep her little stick-frame from tilting, she grabbed both and learnt them. the union ghosts who chattered in the attic must have been so spooked they dropped a chain or two in pity. not her narrative and certainly  not the proper form of disembodiment. they might have, with some dusting of the ears have heard her whittling whisper (teeth a glued locket promise not, not ever (head a furious shake would anyone she love be left alone. but when, in years, her oath came calling other types of spirits kicked then inside her. she came through on her end, dizzy though she was and reached out for her balance, for an object, objects. we were convenient things whose love could be traded on perfection and whose stories were so far from it. I remember her disgust as she wiped me and all the dirty sheets. I have packed enough muscle on these bones and money in these pockets to snap off a check to cover one full hour. Roaring, i make sure that i am heard, a monster god who gets his way.  we were the bookend sons and did our job of straightening and being straightened for a time, provided shelter for her from the miserable storm of lonely desperate effectiveness and the dread ignored.

Copyright © October 2001 Doug Shy


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