My Family Story

The Family Story

My father has asked me to write
The Family Story, meaning he wants
me to find His Story
among the papers strewn
on the tables and floor of his room.
At his direction, I will shuffle
begats and photographs, stack
and restack, name, date and diagram,
the usual ritual of our visits.
If he speaks, it is of casual encounters -
A young doctor in a Packard stops
at Grandmother’s house during the Depression
and asks for a cold glass of water.
He was the oldest, his father died,
his mother went to a sanatorium.
He burned the diaries
over the BBQ grill. He tells me
to use a straightedge
to get the lines right. 

April 10 - Short - Inscrutable Man's Not Last! An Abnominal

An Abnominal (should be abominable)

Short - Inscrutable Man’s Not Last!

(For Robert Stanislaus Schlottmann - otherwise known as Bob or hubbypoo)

Hello, Southern Cro-man, beans-n-rice man.
The marsh calls. Hear the little nite heron.

The last rabbit u shoot, screams. No more.
Trout lines and marsh hens.

Nite transitions - salt to salacious. Burns.
Take me. Scorch me.

Stories - Merrill, u, bees on a limb, a car.
Cousin Al-n-Catahoula hunt Nutria, beer.

Crab boil - mushrooms, corn, aunts, uncles, crabs (natch),
cousins, little ones. Beer. Beer. Beer.

Moon-scent roses - Sombreuil, Alchemist, Taboo. U. Me. Ache.
Sun-bitch thorns.

Am I, am I ur Rorschach blot? Untrammel me.
Am I ur neurosis? Let me be a testament.

Cat shrill nites-n-curtain trauma.
Bounce. Hiss. No shut I’ll O.U.

Oh, Saints-n-Shelties! Oh, Cat, oh, Ace, oh, Son!
Oh, bother-n-lather! Oh, mine, ours.

Louisiana man, tie the boat to a tree. Let’s lie here
on the canal. Let’s listen to the little blue heron.

April 9 - Afterward

Afterward

Natural as lawyer's fees, subpoenas and divorce decrees,

we compare notes. I say, you know the marriage is gone

when you count his condoms and one's missing.

She says, no, it's when you find one in his wallet

and he says, it's just in case something comes up.

I say, I discovered he was cheating on our tenth anniversary

and gifted him my diaphragm, cut in pieces.

She says, she woke up one night to find him

under the kitchen table jerking off

into another woman's lace panties. You win, I say.

Hers picks up the kids on Fridays and hands over clippings

from advice columns on parenting.

Sometimes I open my garage door

and mine's standing there. I can't decide

if he looks like a beaten dog

or the guy from the Halloween movies

and the hell of it is, I'm not sure there's a difference.

April 8 - Making Brownies - Teenage Edition

Making Brownies (Teenage Edition)

Break the first egg.
Admire its snail bright slither
off the counter, down the cabinet.
Keep cracking. Eventually you will have enough
in the bowl. Embrace bowl one armed,
as a dancer holds her lover.
Whisk and twirl.

Add sugar, cocoa, flour, butter.
Ponder the meaning of Medium.
Flip mixer on High. Re-envision
splatter on ceiling as expressionistic art.
Call dogs for Floor Duty. Pour remains
of bowl into…whatever. Bake.

Ponder meaning of “Chill.”
Ask older sister. Ponder
if “give them weed and a movie”
is viable advice.

April 7 - Pharmed

Pharmed

I am like that joke about the spider, stoned
on cannabis, who spins a holy hammock. Pray,

no, not even thoughts will stick, not even
a teaspoonful of morning do to sip.

I lie and blink, words slip
through these worthless threads that brake

in, too. The wheel spins off its axes,
the spoke is chopped to splintered would

that I could perseverate. Prey, prey, prey.
No God can eat through this holey miss.

April 6 - Note From My Secretary