The 2River View Authors • Poems • PDF • Past Issues • 2River |
Rare and Commonplace Flowers Where we ran wild
Stillness Still. My palms sweat like tea glasses on the wicker table brought out with the stories of lost uncles on Labor Day when no one here mentions the four boys who beat that man up and left him to die in the bleached heat. What talk there is—of basketball and trucks, a word or two about the war— comes down to gratitude that Skip came back alive. The only snake in the August garden, that unspoken question, How is she? She’s dying, thank you, but not fast enough to save her posture, her teeth, her eye for fashion, her sarcasm. I don’t add I miss them. Never ask—can someone tell me how to lose the one they loved and hated to love? How it felt to hold her chilly paw with their wet fingers? What they said to strangers bringing food and flowers in the stillness after.
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