A Familial Condition

Disgruntled, they come to me as bit-parts ripped from black and white movies. Mad aunt Anastasia, who should have been a nun, one of her hands would refrain from touching her, the other has been long carried off by wolfish priests. The Holy Ghost has pickled her in a jar, she now floats between worlds. Uncle Sean, the iniquitous Maître D' looming above a meaty cleavage, he who flambéed Steak Diane with a slyly sapid leer, poured cognac, then after the salacious hunt, triumphantly decanted his thirsty+ lusts into any grateful woman whomever. Cousin Tommy died early, but not before he had burnt through the Old Testament. A brimstone disorder gnawed his innards, left him lacking normal human kapok, kept him bubbling until a self-inflicted wound, blew out his brains. There are cousins removed and living, who disassemble themselves, with zealotry, or ennui. None took the middle way, none quietly settled-in to live a life of unremarkable normality, trysting the nights away with damp-stained regrets. Like larks’ tongues, they sing in the invisible. They reside in the far reaches, until dark angels flame out in their berserker eyes.