The Escape Pod

It was the silence I feared;

thick and oily and black as ink.

It embraced me like a lover,

stroking my downy cheek.

 

The road was yards away,

but I couldn’t hear the traffic.

Everything sounded white.

The cars; the wind; the havoc.

 

I saw only the car,

upside down, wheels spinning;

a helpless turtle belching smoke.

My horror was just beginning.

 

It was the blood that drew me on.

A beacon of fear.

I came upon her with burglar’s feet

and knelt so very near.

 

I did not know

she lay dying.

I saw tears.

She was crying.

 

I took her hand.

She took mine.

She said, “please don’t leave”.

I replied in kind.

 

I watched her eyes.

They opened wide.

Her soul escaped,

somewhere outside.

 

Her hand went limp.

So did mine.

She lay still.

I kept crying.

My Father the Ghost

He was an aloof man.

I never heard him laugh.

While we made messes of his life,

he quietly honed his craft.

 

Sitting on his stool,

a guitar across his lap,

he would pluck off random chords

that made no one want to clap.

 

A blue thread of smoke

wafting from his cigarette

joined the steam from his coffee

to form an addict’s minaret.

 

With sad grey eyes,

he would watch us play;

His thick grey lick

ever dangling in his way.

 

You could tell he loved her–

my mother I mean.

It takes real love

to paint this kind of scene.

 

“She was fat and lazy,”

he told me one eve,

but he wiped away a tear

using the cuff of his sleeve.

 

I took offense,

but because I couldn’t see.

He was trying his best to hide

a terrible pain from me.

 

He never said he loved her.

He never said this thing.

He just walked around our house

stroking his wedding ring.