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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