Last Request
As I stood at your bedside
I didn’t focus on how thin you’ve
gotten
or the few months you have left.
I thought about how much you look
like Grandma,
with her walnut complexion
cheekbones
same dorsum of the nose,
smile, like a quarter crescent moon,
her, reed thin and 18,
birthing you at home,
her biggest baby, at nine pounds,
hot towels around her waist to steam
you out.
I tried to picture you sitting on
her lap,
her slathering your hands with
molasses and handing you a feather
to keep you laughing and busy
through her cooking and cleaning.
Sorry it took us a couple of minutes
to find 1 Kings so we could read
along
and that we didn’t know the story of
Elijah,
but we understand its point, your
point, that
you have accepted God’s will.
But before you are taken up to
heaven
in the chariot of fire,
I am hoping you will let me, us, in.
Share some more stories of your
Kentucky childhood
the
bigness/smallness/warmth/draftiness of the houses you all lived in,
how much you teased Mommy or protected
her from the pranks of
my three other uncles,
Grandfather’s sober moments,
if he gave hugs or sage advice,
before Grandma wearied of the
drinking, gambling, constant evictions,
left for New York to make a
fatherless home for six,
what it was like
to be man of the house at the age of
12,
your studies at Cooper Union,
your time in the Army,
why you choose lifelong bachelorhood
and gave your life over to the Lord.
I hope there are a few of your
drawings left to salvage
from your shopping cart. I promise,
we will find it soon.
In the meantime, please, let us in.
Carla M. Cherry has been published
in Anderbo, For Harriet, Obscura, Dissident Voice, Random Sample Review,
Eunoia Review, MemoryHouse Magazine, Down In The Dirt, In Between
Hangovers, Picaroon Poetry, and Firefly Magazine. She has published three books
of poetry with Wasteland Press: Gnat Feathers and Butterfly Wings
(2008), Thirty Dollars and a Bowl of Soup (2017), and Honeysuckle Me
(2017).
Tags:
Poetry