A tale of nastalgia and the lack thereof. |
I do not miss my mother as I should The mercurial grease fire of her eyes The hissing snap of the switch In her semisweet baritone Singing, Father forgive them For they know not what they do An echo overlay I hear today The stray cat mewing behind a car I miss the sick cat I saved in my suicidal state I miss her meeting me like a foundling dog at my door I miss taking her for walks in the park Like my child I miss her waking me with a rough tongue and watching her lick the cheese off my macaroni I moved and gave her up to my uncle Where she died far from me Sometimes I imagine he put her back out on the St. Louis streets Streets sometimes as black as tar, Broken in chunks you can fly like Frisbees Streets sometimes littered with shattered glints of glass Streets sometimes grease spotted Worn thin by tires and feet Streets lined with trees Sometimes unkept, and nearly wild Sometimes manicured, and trimmed Sometimes new and dewy in dawn’s pink Sometimes splendid in pristine winter wear Or ablaze with a myriad of autumn’s painted leaves But from U-City to Creve Coeur No space is wasted, no corners bare St. Louis patriots set the scene and Every patch of grass must wear a tree Now its 8:15 in Ohio and gray the morning Shows the pallor of her corn harvested cheeks A brusque wind tears at the flap Of my jacket reminding me to retrieve my coat arms locked, back to back the frosted fields meet the struggling horizon, the sun’s first seat And thinking of my mother And my cat What I miss most are the trees |