To Find Starlight Dig In Mud
when he spoke
words broke like glass between his teeth
14 minutes past 8PM 7 weeks after the red river
in his brain ran almost dry
he the acidic and sullen shadow of his youth
turned to me
(one side of his face a landslide of flesh
frozen into freefall
thus i won't mimic the inarticulate sound of it)
look after your mother
and my ten year old self nodding
wishing i were not there
then she who had married this man to protect her
plus one boychild from a condemning Catholic family
and a rabid priesthood
having thus become a widow at 37
being only 5 feet high in her pumps
also as slim as a whippet
turned to drink dying quickly of a gastric ulcer
never mind her failing liver
no wonder
i turned out more angular then an open razor
biting every hand that fed body and mind
thinking that same hand would one day turn against me
as it usually did
but i unable to stop my breakneck race to personal destruction
until poetry found me wandering a bitter earth
it entering my soul one turbulent night wailing like
a hungry infant which i fed and carried for years
not knowing i needed it much more than it needed me
and so
we ate broken glass together until
words bled into red flowers floating upon a river
that flowed through my brain
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2022
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