I carry my dead wherever I go.
My father a pencil tucked
behind my ear. Handy for scribbling
like a short-order cook. Friend,
you want to eat your life over easy?
My mother on a keychain
I made from her last bullet –
was the loaded chamber of her .38
audacity of her true heart?
My uncle erasing Colorado's state
record for the mile in my shoe.
My shoulders pinned to
firebombing Tokyo in B-29
Superfortresses. There is no rush
greater than four 2,200 HP Cyclone
hummingbirds at full roar in my wings.
Although I itch for a fight with anyone
Japanese. I tire of the radioman's
same lovesick jokes
over and over, look
he’s dead too.
One grandmother in my knees
with a prayer card and scrubbing
the floor. One in my eyes
staring down Sioux warriors
sitting in the kitchen. One grandfather
across the room smoking a cigarette,
quoting Plato in Greek translation.
One grandfather
Lighting the ranch on fire
to collect insurance,
hands as hard as sky and adobe
fresh from the kiln.
My brother wrapped like tiny bones
inside my ear – anvil, incus, incubus,
jazzy hot drummer,
tympanum.
Yesterday my love, you found the
secret space, the veil behind the drawer
where twelve socks were
planning their escape.
My dead despair –
you cut off their last hope
of relief from my tyranny,
exiled to infinite life.
For Shay’s Word Garden
qbit 
up early this morning / well not actually it seems / and you are my snap to attention. I cannot recall being touched so deeply by a poem. I will for as long as an aging body can / carry your poem with me. Thank you “Q”
Helen
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Oh Helen. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
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Still smiling after re-reading this. The socks! Yet there is a lot of heavy duty metaphor in here, too. The dead are always with us, sometimes more potent and powerful than when they were living. You had me at the first stanza, with life eaten over easy, but I also loved the grandmothers and “..hands as hard as sky and adobe/
fresh from the kiln…” and of course, that penetrating last stanza that brought a rueful smile. Good stuff, qbit.
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Thanks Hedge. I was hoping you would stop by!
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Lives lived, then lived again. The writing is like standing in front of a firing squad, Randall. I can’t even describe the shock of each line, so powerful.
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Wow. Thank you so much.
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This is really touchingly beautiful! What a work of art this poem is!
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Thank you so much!!
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Wow, despite the lighter touches like the socks, I read this as dark dark dark, and the final bit reinforces that. I’m wondering what the second stanza refers to–nothing good. This seems to be the ultimate worm’s eye view of one’s ancestors. If those who have passed “live on” in the thoughts of those left behind, these folks live in Hell.
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Thanks for the close read. I think I hide behind humor sometimes, but maybe a bit of honesty in this poem bleeds through.
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