William Repass
implements: 5 $ brand-new packet of straight identical yellows: sixty blunt shafts arranged in rows over rows & spinetospine— ripped open to a sharp HB no.2 now poised in my grip: a spaghetti- (the oily units) wooden line between (of the hand)—then the switch a -cross of the wrist, leaving behind a soft trace—refined in each line to the taste for polish. & the lines bend towards life after a fashion as empty as my drink, breaking off, the visible type: the inevitable phrase; these perish -ables boxed [neatly up in-print] like fingerprints w/ their swirls indexed. ATTENTION DE TOURIST STOP DEAD END CAUTION LIMIT RISK ONLY HEAVY VEHICLES TURNING AHEAD SPEED NARROWS CHILDREN AT PLAY UNDER CONSTRUCTION BRIDGE VITAL GAS HARD HATS & EYE PROTECTION IN FORMATION TELEPHONE TOILETS XCHANGE FIRE HYDRANT NO SMOKING PLEASE WAKE IDLE PRIVATE PUMP FROM THIS POINT ON RAMP LEASH PET DO NOT STARE YOU ARE BEING RECORDED NO PARKING VIOLATORS DOUBLE BLIND CORNER PEANUT FREE PEANUT CHEMICAL SPILLS SIGNIFICANTS Elegy: come out you storied old glorious gory old pentagrams & stripes— passed back,forth,turned grandly over,unfolded(& open one bluered&white instant): grandmother is not hasty with wailing & lo no tears drop on the black clothes she doesn't tear; nor tears her hair. after days of detox & oxygen starved PTSD cartoons; days of orders jabbered (blue in face) at the ward's ears—at (like wives, nurses who whisper enormous Nothings) at white washed walls; his, the grand Father's, grand entombment by comparison seems some how familiar in militaristic rituals that would fit this bomber-pilot turned stock market-alcoholic turned to ashes & interred (after years of his family passing around his food—the food his wife & daughters prayed & slaved over—him telling, him drinking, we listening—she whispering —listening to his past, his war stories); returned to God how grand in his marble box (like vanilla ice-cream), placed in the hollow in the mowed flat knoll—flat, but for obelisks jutting-out; soldiers there who, like toy-soldiers passed down to sons almost, uneven -ly drillstepping, step down the stair(almost in time to the taps)-like knoll, their baby blue eyes lancing out chopped off from under glossy officer bills. then foldedup, the daiper off its pole—creased,stuffed back inside its case (& passed to she) as cold numbs soldiers' training saying I'm sorry for (too familiar crumbs of sentiment) your loss but ma'am he served his country well, well. Matryoshka: One day I'm outside playing War when clouds come over me, & it starts to rain. Soon ditches run with rainwater and red dirt. Each splash of dropped rain looks to me like this picture in my historybook for school, picture of bomb blowing-up. But in the picture, it is still. This is funny but I don't like wet. So I go back inside, track red mud into living-room where Grandmother sits like always she sits (she is very still), staring into fire in fireplace like always she stares into fire. She cringes at sight of mud on my feet. But does not scold me. I leave her to her staring, & go to kitchen where Mother is peeling onions & chopping beets, for borscht she tells me. I love borscht, I tell her, with uszka—which look like little ears but filled with white mushrooms. Borscht stains my mouth red. "Tell me why does Grandma sit always in rocking-chair all day, just looking at fire?" I ask, dangling like puppetshow from Mother's apron-strings. Knife flashes, white. Juice from beets covers Mother's hands, paints flowers on her apron so that white roses now are red. "She is remembering," my Mother says. "What does she remember about?" "That she never tells me. Please, whatever you do, do not bother her about it. She is very tired." I leave kitchen & go back to living-room. Grandmother is still there. Is still staring into fire. She does not move, except like back & forth & back & forth, in her white rocking-chair. Her eyes are dim, like clouded-over. Even in light of fire. "What are you remembering about, Grandma?" "Long leather boots on long leather faces. Bootprints." She gestures at my muddy tracks. This makes no sense to me. Maybe this is why Mother told me ask no questions. But I am curious, still, so I climb onto Grandma's lap. Again she cringes. I decide to layer her, like Mother layers onions. I peel outer sheet of white skin to discover, nestled under it, a tree. I see my Grandmother, sitting underneath in pool of shade, wearing a white dress, legs folded, very still. But her skin is smooth, her cheeks red. I see in her hair a flower, a rose. She holds hands with man I've never seen before, & whispers into his ear. She seems to look at him, this man, like she looks at fire in fireplace. But her eyes aren't dim anymore. I'm so happy for her I keep taking her apart, until I see a baby, covered in blanket of white wool. She reminds me of Mother. I keep dragging away layers & layers of skin. I see another man. This man wears uniform like men in historybook pictures. He wears long leather boots with red beetjuice all over. Next, a field of red red roses. In last layer, I see myself. This is like looking into two mirrors, because I see myself again & again & again. Under that, my grandmother is hollow. Layer by layer, I put my her back together again, until she's her usual self, rocking in her chair. A white husk. Her mouth smiles at me, but her eyes are dim, all over again. "Bootprints," she says to me with distant voice, "deface faces." She looks back at fire. My Mother calls me to the kitchen for lunch, but I can't eat borscht, even with uszka. I don't play War again for days & days. Until I forget. William Repass says, "I'm a recent graduate from Hendrix College, and I've been published in Counterexample Poetics, Otoliths, Marco Polo Art Magazine, the Southern Literary Festival Anthology, and Aonian, with an upcoming publication in A-Minor Magazine."
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