Welcome back, Laura!
The Bilge Master
KALOPSIA
- after Sára J. Molčan’s “Post Coital”
When my mother smoked cigarettes,
she exhaled in flowers: dainty periwinkle,
sprigs of foxglove, a wall of top-heavy tulips.
The blooms scrambled upwards from her lips,
reaching for the light above the kitchen table
as if it were a sun instead of a fluorescent flicker.
As an infant, I would enfold the petals in my
chubby palms, not questioning this miracle
of horticulture. But when I was older I noticed
how she would always smoke after my father had
stormed off into the night, leaving the house
as shocked and silent as the air after a slap.
A trellis of roses climbed in front of her face,
a screen. It was her way of not seeing.
She did the same when he raised his fists
to me, and on the day I finally raised mine
back to him. I don’t know if my father saw the flowers;
I don’t know if he was even capable of knowing beauty
when he encountered it. All I know is that
when I think of spring, I feel a burning in my lungs and
a cough in my throat, and a familiar anger rises in my chest.
Every year I leave a pack of Salems on her headstone,
hoping that I will return to find a bouquet.
SUMMER STORMS
- after Hobson Pittman’s “Reflections”
My mother used to call us to the porch
to watch the summer thunderstorms.
We’d sit just out of reach of the driving rain,
close enough to catch drops in our palms
and shriek in glee at the crashes of thunder.
Once, lightning struck the red maple out front
with a flash so blinding I saw it in my dreams
for weeks. When the angry gray clouds moved out
towards the mountains, they left us a world
so bright and clear it hurt to look at. We splashed
through the grass, danced our feet verdant green.
My mother would pick up the fallen branches and
weave herself a crown. Wildness burned in her eyes
after a storm, a feral thrill that took hours to fade.
When I returned from the funeral, a storm louder than
any I could remember descended upon the old house.
The floorboards shook. A vase of ancient silk flowers
tipped from a shelf, crash muffled by the rain’s dull roar.
The beat of my heart pounded in my ears,
a primeval song without words, a battle drum.
For a moment I thought I saw my mother
through the rain, long-legged and twirling.
I knew without looking that her feet were as green
as moss, that on her brow rested a circlet of branches.
Look, girls, she called. Come and see the storm!