beeswingblue

I let the workers in the side door— magic dream makers in dirty boots, bringing in drywall, outlets, all sorts of power tools I turned my morning show up loud; Garth Brooks poured through the front room floor When it got quiet, I poked my head into the basement, supposedly curious, definitely watchful The electrician hiked his jeans up, ran electrical to a TV that wasn’t there; the plumber whistled “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” Hammer struck nail, the bandsaw roared Step followed step, dirty handprint followed footprint I picked out the fixture, I’d say, looking at the light, do you like it? And then as swiftly as like follows need I would check and recheck if the shelves were all straight, if the work I’d hired out was good enough

1. My first formulative experience was my mother dying. Like so many deaths in my life, it should have been expected – but it wasn’t ever, and so my last memory of her was the back of her gown, open, in the hospital. 2. And why is this about myself? Because everything both is, and isn’t. I watched earthworms dry out in the mud of the driveway. Was that their story, or mine? 3. But that was earlier, much earlier, when I took substance and elegance where I saw it – I – it’s always me, isn’t it? I stood taut in tight lines at the bus stop, my lunchbox in my hand, ready to fight back all the kids who taunted me. 4. And the years zip forward, death, sudden and cruel, somehow swept back into life – and there were stories I did not own and could not live up to – my father as the man of the house, watching his mother bringing home buckwheat for pancakes – always buckwheat – but that was a story told only over years of stunted patience. 5. How many years passed before you told the story of

We spent all day packing up puzzle pieces of your life, mulling over why you kept five antique mantel clocks, a full set of First Love glassware, too precious to use, no real use to you John, I'm so damn sorry; I’ve forgotten already which of the three desks we went through belonged to your grandma or to your “Auntie Mame,” Aunt Carrie You always regaled strangers with how she took you into Pittsburgh; she said she’d buy you a suit— you came home to your mother, a telling grin on your face, a huge S on your chest, a scarlet cape wrapped around your skinny shoulders John, I remember at least the dusty rolltop was your dad’s, your grade school photo in black-and-white on it, and that time he played county fair arcade games until he won you a baby duck— it trailed you and your mutt throughout Little Washington, a Muscovy duck behind it I recall your wiry father rode in the belly of a bomber— and the story of the plaster RCA Nipper he got one Christmas as a boy, now tucked tight in one

I bought a Santa Claus balloon and spoke with you Christmas morning, your marker fresh, stunted grass all around it I'd talked to you before— you dipped and buzzed in the plastic of the kitchen light, tucked up in the ceiling I was bits of broken china, a howl stuttered through the tautness of my lips You touched my hand and whispered it's not anything you did or said; I had a year of failing breath, at most, left in my fading body The goodbye I gave you then, my love, worked so well I wasn’t ready You slipped away in the silence of that night like the glint of wrapping paper, the kisses from our lips