Absent but Here

The shell casing slow motions skyward, drop-floats back to rye grass, brass in a tight
coat of gunpowder. Many others, random as dandelions, are found by the sunlight, gathered, handed out to wilt between our fingers, in pockets. A cousin reminds us to wash with lots of soap after touching them. Lead residue. Still warm in our hands, the poison slow motions, too.

A roach across the floor with the light chasing its thick body, the cornea-thin wings. There were roaches before, but I was younger then and Mother not nearly so sick.

This is your bedroom, baby. I love it, I love it, she said. She ran to the porcelain cat curled on the nightstand. Pink! I love it. I juat love it. I had told her I hoped she'd like it. She liked it, I'm sure, for me. A soul so old for a girl missing only three teeth from new gums.

Great Biographies. Stacks of these, a series, in the back bedroom, through a door like a caught mouse, a splinter of screech trying to escape, an outward swinging of this sound alarming my arrival. The books I shuffle like old cards. Thumb-flipping through one, there's my picture, wincing into the sunlight, standing, as always, in exactly the wrong spot.

I put the necklace on the sink and rubbed the tips of my fingers across my throat and
upperchest. Forever was forever, but the silver coating was fading and the copper was showing.
My children reduced to shards of pennies, and I had not showered in weeks.

Somewhere there's a road that curves in England. I'm not sure how that helps, but to think of it. A curvy road, flatly paved, rolling between rye grass and ending somewhere where answers take you by the hand. Think of that, and not of this.