Saturday, January 11, 2014




needles and hay

for Meryl and Julia                   (inspired by a scene from the film August: Osage County)

Mother, we have been married such a long time
so when you screamed to stop the car
so you could wretch into the wild radiant roadside grasses
burnt and toasted willowy in the easy baking sun

I felt compelled to pull your hair from your face with one palm
while I rested the other palm on your upper back
the clasp of your cheap brassiere
rigid soft containment like raised warts on slippery hardwood floors of buckled flesh

but the side of the car beckoned
and I just stood there frozen in the august wind
closing my eyes as you ran through rolling hayfields

when I finally caught up to you
the screen door to the car we called a home slammed shut
the family we pretended to be, with the authenticity of fraudulent fried chicken
in solar baked appliances, drove away

leaving us behind  and left with nothing but
that frozen stifling latent summer wind rolled up in once golden stacks

faded red carpets half sick of all our toxic entrances

that wind that rings through time
bringing us so much further together

splitting us into needles, dirt and hay…

1 comment:

  1. This one makes me ache. It invokes color and visual details with a seeming paucity, if not an impossible few, words.

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