The House Eaters
1.
My grapefruit tanned
toothpicks
bow above
the five-day flattened
spot
in an olive shag carpet
tracing grandpa Leo's
blueprint,
with one encapsulated
toe –
this is the femur, this is
the head,
this is the fist, the ring
finger, the soul.
I search for any blunt
white quivering slivers
of Caroline's purported
fly fetuses.
2.
Huddling behind the
corpse
of an old hospital bed,
a framed photo
smoke browned and
wearing my toddler face,
watches
his children choke
hushed, broken
sentences
this will be yours, my
plate, separate the
holiday china…
an enigmatic language
that hovers in
smoke stretched rings
to wilt
upon the hallway
bulb.
3.
I am left
the ceramic cygnet,
and an ivory carved
dromedary.
These artifacts
plucked
from his porcelain
menagerie
that I decipher
through dust fingerprints
for
one small inheritance of
a memory.
4.
Tomorrow,
Aunt Rose
puts price
to his bibelots,
the olive shag carpet,
even cousin Amy's
plastic horse,
who was accidentally
left to pasture on an
afghan.
A silver plated glass cage
image of her past,
she says she will whittle
all of him,
from the
wooden
house
bones.
Copyright © Jennifer Brooks | Year Posted 2006
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