Francine

Mouse’s End

Mother, farm bred and practiced,

fills the bucket to the very top

while staring in the direction of

the greasy green ceramic tile –

too good to replace yet.

The cage is sent for.

My sister returns, sobbing and stumbling,

stepping on the chalky white polish of her own shoes.

My father, the still center of the storm,

sits in gaping cotton boxer shorts

with his head forward saying,

“It’s the most humane thing.

Get your father a beer.”

My sister sets the cage down,

delivers the beer, wills herself invisible.

We’re ready.

Whitey drops head first

into the cold tap water.

Mother clamps the scratched plate on.

A roiling,

then the gift of silence.

 

Good Friday

From 12 to 3 you have to sit on the couch

and not do anything.

Our Lord was suffering from 12 to 3

and usually now it rains because the world is sad

about the suffering of Our Lord.

You can’t even jiggle your foot

because God the Father will see

and be very sad that you are jiggling

on the day his Son died.

You can’t color or even read,

you have to just sit and think about Jesus

and the nails in his hands and feet

and how the soldiers took his clothes off

and how someone poked him with a sword

to see if he was really really dead

and how the blood came out.

It’s okay if the dog plays

but you can’t throw the ball for her,

because you are the one made in God’s image.

And no matter how much you want to go outside,

you can’t.

You have to sit and think about how

you have it good in this country

with lots of food and cars and

the freedom to worship Jesus however you want.

 

Something to Thank my Mother for

I was born first.

I was the largest, hanging low and heavy like wet sheets on the line.

Her mother was two months dead and her husband in the service,

so she rode to the hospital in her father’s truck.

Massachusetts in January was dark as the grave.

Her fingers had swollen, so she couldn’t wear her wedding ring.

My eyes were brown at once, oxidized by the sterile air.

So the nurses judged her abandoned, me a half-breed,

and brought her coffee and smokes.

As for me –

I was so round, so satisfied, so wombful,

I slept and slept.

I never woke for food.

I was already left-handed and dreamy.

My whole first year she had to tickle the bottoms of my feet

to wake me, crying:

Look at this.  Look.