(no subject)

[got2getfree]

i threw a chair in the path
of my father
when his emotions showed up
last february, a few days after
his birthday, to explain to me
that my mother wished his mother
dead
when she was (in fact) lying
in a hospital bed dying.

when i ran up the stairs
i fell asleep and watched
the chair splitting,
splintering into thousands of
smooth, strong, little chairs.
and he would bend (finally) and
pick them up and place them on
the counter, twirling them on
a leg before picking up another.

my parents hugged each other for
the last time
after she was dead, her body
in that room with all of us.
the tidy attendants left her
with an iris or some other pretty
hopeful but also dead flower in her hands.