My father vanished into the kiss of night, a flock of moths spilling from his exit wound. |
When my father died at last, I did not attend the funeral, having no broom to get there. In another state I ate my lunch and pretended the newborn white foals in my stomach were pillars of bluest granite for his sake. His wife and her children, all loving and stupid, spoke their lame honors over his coffin before it was lowered into the lampblacked teeth of slumber. To honor my reputation, I dressed in scarlet satin. Days passed. The foals became stallions that galloped and sweated, running their races to make money for others. Awake or asleep, the filaments of my life haunted my slumber. Ablaze with faerie fire, I could not concentrate and all I touched blackened like silver in green- est seawater. I used my thirty pieces to buy a smorgasbord of hot wings, and gorged myself till I was sick with blue memory. Buffalo gravy dripped down my chin and stained all my shirts with the blood of the delicious reptiles all culled to grace my dinner plate. Abating to bed then, I rested fitfully and dreamed I was forgiven my sins by the rector of the neighboring parish. My father, his loose skin a gasping pale blue, van- ished into the kiss of night, a flock of moths spilling from his exit wound. The stallions were culled and turned into glue. I woke in a sweat and a fever of epiphany, seeing the course I would take in the morning. I dressed in darkest blue. Heavy with cold stones, I tried to drown myself, but the creek was mere inches and I was just muddied. A farmer passed by then, and gave me a scolding for trying to throw my life away, as he helped me up and drove me home. I said nothing to my mother about all this, one scolding enough for me. I washed my clothes, the day fled into dusk, and I fell into sleep. The fever then passed, as most fevers do. ---Published by Last Leaves Magazine, April 2024 (PDF pg. 94) https://www.lastleavesmag.com/_files/ugd/dccfc8_38f316ba0fca47d0a33b2a1f73fe26d6... ---Posted here Dec. 11, 2024 |