Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Twenty-one Winter 2009 |
Periwinkle Sara Tracey Your mother is a very old woman by the time you come to paint the kitchen. You wonder if you should tell her: You look tired, Mama. Why don’t you sit down? She has stopped plucking her eyebrows. Everywhere, paper towels and tinfoil are rinsed and ready to be reused. She has taped the edges for you, laid out trays, rollers, screwdriver. You pop the lid and find a blue like your father’s eyes. Did she know when she chose it? * Your father called you the day he left. His words were sticky, like wet grass. There were already too many voices, a basket you carried at your hip. * For lunch, she serves wedding soup, salami, olives, lady fingers. Alabaster saints guard the windowsills. You pick paint chips from your nails while she asks if you’ve been to mass. If you could tell her one thing, you would say, Prayer won’t bring him back. |
About Sara Tracey |