- home -           - fontsize -           - next -


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."


    - home -           - fontsize -           - next -