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Eileen Malone |
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THE CORNER WHERE HE DIED He had a small electric heater by his feet, a round table, an uncurtained window and a freestanding pull-chain lamp in the corner where he ate ground-up meat, drank his tea with tomato sandwiches, swallowed Ex-lax and Alka-Seltzer smoked filterless cigarettes with straight shots of bourbon warm amber tonics to dull the heavy ache of shingles emphysema, cirrhosis, cracked pelvis, suffocating spirit saw no doctor, once laid on the floor all night with a broken leg refusing ambulance, while my mother begged, pleaded cried, even brought a bottle for him to pee into until he fell unconscious with the pain, then they took him and he raged and her and me in the hospital, never forgave us wanted to stay forever in his corner, watch television paste sequins and shiny bits of foil and glitter on recycled frames filled with pages he tore from books and magazines and recolored with leftover house paint and colored pencils It's been sold, the movers are gone, the interior cracks open I study the corner where he died in my final check for anything forgotten, seemed he wouldn't wake up my mother phoned me right after she called the parish priest who must have suspected but gave last rites anyway but I knew when my father let me put my arm around him and didn't flinch didn't call me a bitch, that's how I could tell he was dead even before the paramedics draped his head and upper body and sent my mother to the kitchen where she keened lowly like a living piece of world that had broken off to fall forever the cremation men carried out the body-bag feet first I traveled from her to his corner until all that was left of him on the ochre vinyl sofa was a small mound of watery shit in a chrome bedpan which my mother emptied before kneeling down to pray for his soul, telling me later how a halo of light appeared in his corner ceiling above her a fleeting shimmer of recognition, of appreciation. DRUNKEN POET "You mustn't mind that a poet is a drunk, rather that drunks are not always poets." -Oscar Wilde In the shuffling corner behind the green lit pool table money, packages, move rhythmically between sweaty hands someone slips a coin into a flickering video-game slot yells my name, shut up, I yell back, don't scream me that's right, that's what I yelled, don't scream me back into this place; I take a swig of ice clear vodka sweet opiate frost, how much longer, I want to know am I going to keep sloshing my face in the trough keep trying to get drunk with similar beasts when will I give in to my suspicion that my repetitive life is death and make a break for it images slosh around like a curse in my cranium a drunk bellies up to the bar, hands quivering like plucked birds he turns his pockets inside out, ambushes me with his psychostare an ammonia-like odor of liver failure mixes with nail polish breath I buy him a whiskey, his first for the day, keep the word patience inside my head, feel like a sea-world intern feeding sushi to a starving shark; watch his skull make room for his brain by voiding last night's nightmare, he gulps, gags, on the words that emerge from where the end of his tongue meets his throat begins to play it too fast and too loose something dark crawls out of his mouth, whatever it is it is not poetry, but I don't stop listening, never give up hoping he will deliver gnarled meanings in his trance-like state will kindle a familiar fire I can't remember feeling before will say you were a good girl, a fine daughter, one of the best the bartender leans over, pretends to wipe with grimy rag around my glass where tired flies buzz, damn, this is one of those times no matter how much I drink, I cannot get drunk cannot spew poetry about that part of me that always wants to love drunks, no, I say to myself, drunks are not always poets sometimes they are father and daughter side by side at the bar drinking. [Index] |
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Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005 |
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