Future Aubade

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