from Spill

Robin Tremblay McGaw

 

March

Have you noticed how hard it is to separate.

The bills are sealed and on their way. A wave of confusion crosses her face when the doctor peeks. The clandestine palimpsests. Distortion. Still there is knocking. Lily finds the death rattles compelling. Old age marvels at her husband’s sister’s children dying off one by one in their fifties. Charlie got up on his birthday, had breakfast and coffee, and hemorrhaged. Like flies. Gag and fall. The burnt umber opening and opening. I hardly ever anymore having accommodated all the years. Our kitty could be cloned and we’d be legion with black cats treading on my chest putting their wet noses under my chin. His tender tongue trespasses mercilessly.

One can see how it is attractive. The family in San Diego whose seven year old is missing. To have her back again. Not her. Waves of hot sand. Each granule in flux. These copies are not the same. Our longing. Cannot match. Plastic necklaces fill in. Little cameras advertising their invisibility. To a man in order to women or a woman. They wouldn’t show children but. A neighbor’s daughter. How would he know where her bedroom is. Depression is passed just like. We do. We fret. In a rocking chair hands too busy by the fire, head down. Or him out there swinging the axe for wood which is heat so close to the sharp edge as it cuts air and limbs. Fret in leather thigh-high boots stands on the corner of Polk and Post the lush lounge spilling out crooners and tiny operetta hopefuls. Hair as purply blue as a mother’s labia slipping beneath and hanging. Gravity exerts its pull. Ssshh

His hope was contained in a log and now bobs out on the open gulf . To have disappeared at sea. Curtains in the bedroom moving gently with an early morning breeze. As if nothing was different. Every color pitch perfect and spanking.

Next Page


Issue Three
Table of Contents