He Comes Back To Apologize

by Laura Ann Reed

 
Is that you, sweetheart         I’ve got these ashes
in my eyes           no fingers now to rub them with
I came back to     they even make your hair look gray!
What I’m trying to say is      I’ve thought things through
and         but my thoughts have been so scattered since
I saw you last.                                 I could tell you
where I’ve been    the morgue   the flames        the sky.  
Part of me escaped     although they claimed otherwise.
What remained                   was taken out in that
ridiculously expensive boat     and sprinkled in the Bay
under the Golden Gate.               All these jangled angles
I’ve seen things from          how your mother blamed
you for                 when did you get those dark shadows
below your lovely eyes                    I know you hoped
I’d take a stand when she started in           and I wish
I’d       such a glare from that window!      Could you        
pull the shade?      Well, anyway, I do see she was
unreasonable      and   I              there were reasons
for her            unreasonableness        like the six
       who didn’t live                you were the lucky one. 
The point being, she expected you to be all seven
and when you weren’t, she   I    should have     my
throat’s so dry, I’m still choking from the detritus,
debris, it’s been what, twenty years since I tried
to speak     all that dust from the chimney smoke
    you know, I think I hear your mother calling me
I’ve got to go     Oh don’t cry        Don’t cry    Don’t
make your father sad             whatever happened
to my happy little girl?


* * * * *

Laura Ann Reed received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared or is forthcoming in MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals.