Literary as hell.
Funny this Colorado mountain trail
rambling like cows carved out its predecessor
along this lake reflecting never-melting snow
on summer peaks or winter still up there.
Where 20 miles away a 19th century cemetery
houses old ladies at thirty,
babies barely old enough for names,
teenage flu victims,
and husbands dead below this rock.
Four beads on a thread,
we were that close trudging
home, separated only by
thick coats on this suddenly
spring afternoon amid the last
puddles of melted slush
and forsythias sprouting buds.
Don’t step on a crack!
We shouted as we long-stepped
sidewalk square to square
in unison as beads shove beads
when you swing the string.
You’ll break your mother’s back!
I flinched, my step floundering
as I forgot to step long in step
with you all, my mind a flurry,
my mother lying still at the foot
of the sofa, then loaded onto
the stretcher, daddy sobbing
as the minister spoke, and me
motherless and broken by
slaughtering my mother with
carelessness so of course I stepped
short and landed on the crack,
scattering the beads in the gutter.
I reached out and touched her hand, a simple
gift in a nursing home. Her old skin was soft
as spring grass. Others watched with suspicion,
She placed her other hand over mine
as if to forestall my leaving. I had decided
in an instant when I heard of her change
of habitat to visit this former neighbor
without family.
She is a woman with an endless heart.
Once, when I asked her to describe
herself, she answered, “My loneliness
is indestructible.”
The smell of dinner drifted in from the
dining room. She claimed not to be
hungry except for company.
I asked about her husband. She said
they had had an arrangement which lasted
sixty years. She had no children, claimed
to be standing on the back porch of life
waiting for death. I assured her
there would yet be moments of happiness.
Her face remained stolid.
I stood, my signal for departure, walked
across flowered carpet toward the exit,
emerged into the welcome glare of late
sunlight.
___
R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. Nik is the author of two chapbooks: Cafes of Childhood and Greatest Hits, as well as eight books: Why Dance, Necessary Windows, Cafes of Childhood (the original chapbook with additional poems), Mother Goosed, Occasional Heaven, A Human Saloon, Rustle Rustle Thump Thump, and Rough. Critics and judges called Cafes of Childhood a “beautifully harrowing account of child abuse,” but not “sentimental” or “self-pitying,” an “amazing book,” and “a single unified whole.”
Gran spreads out her knickers on the baking tray.
I hardly dare peek: my mother says it’s a crime to stare at undies, especially those of old people.
But Gran doesn’t care.
Next, she reaches for the string that loops across the kitchen and tugs my undies off it. Laying them carefully beside her own, she slides the tray into the oven.
Gran is weird – but a good sort of weird. She bakes bread in a flowerpot, and grows mustard and cress on wet facecloth. At Christmas, she sends me home-made fudge in a used can of chick peas, with a dollar coin taped to the bottom. The label is amended with black pen to Chuck Pea, her pet name for me. I’ve kept all the cans she has ever sent.
There’s a pop as the gas ignites; Gran beams. “Friendly flames on a freezing morning; what could be better?” As I watch the flames, she stretches across and ruffles my hair. I duck away, though secretly I love the touch of those soft, wrinkled hands. Continue reading
This is what I know to be true about the New Vernon House in Chepachet, Rhode Island.
In 1835, the Vernon family home burnt to the ground, claiming the lives of Constance Vernon, 38, and Matthew Vernon, 7. Thomas Vernon, 45, and his surviving sons, George, 16, and John, 13, buried their loved ones on the property before rebuilding what is now known as the New Vernon House. Upon his father’s death in 1849, George Vernon sold the property, reportedly saying “it was a fine home . . . but haunted to me.” These facts are not in dispute: the tragedy was covered at length in the New-England Telegraph, and digitized articles are now accessible through the Library of Congress. George never again publicly commented on the home, leaving locals and historians to wonder what he meant by the word “haunted.” Did he experience something supernatural there? Or was the house just a painful reminder of the loss of his beloved mother and brother?
Over the years, the New Vernon House has been the subject of speculation and gossip, as well as the scene of several reported ghost sightings and paranormal occurrences. Some say the house smells faintly of smoke, even today. Others swear they’ve seen a woman in black walking the property at night, clutching her chest and calling for help. Separating fact from fiction, rumor from reality has proven difficult. But I’m trying, and here’s why: there’s something else I know to be true about the New Vernon House. It’s the last place my daughter was reportedly seen alive.
The small graveyard, tucked in, almost hidden, past the hills and meadows is nearly empty. I stop my car in the square of pebbles in front, take the plastic bag lying in the passenger seat and step out into the howling wind.
The gate shuts on its own behind me with a thick thud. I make my way across the tombs that are spaced out seemingly haphazardly, and in a variety of sizes. For a moment, there are dim lights and laughter in the distance, then it’s gone just as quickly. Trick-or-treaters, perhaps, hunting for bounty in the residential are nearby.
Tilde brushes against my calf, sniffing into the wind at nothing. I can just barely see her tail wagging. I forgot to bring a lantern, so I use the screen of my phone to light my path forwards. The grass in here could use a trim. Long straws, still wet from the rain earlier today, sticks in chunks on my boots, but Tilde doesn’t mind it. Finally, I reach the tombstone I was searching, and pull the bouquet out of my plastic bag and place it in front of the stone.
“There,” I tell Tilde, “now we can play.”
The word ‘play’ seems to instantly switch on something in her mind, and she jumps around my feet as I dig in my jacket-pocket after a stick I picked up earlier before getting in the car. Playing with Tilde I lose all track of time – I exhaust myself physically, but mentally I’m in a pleasant, soothing lull of sorts. Tilde’s a bundle of energy, same as always. A man walks by, just a shadow against the fence and the trees, I don’t know if he even notices Tilde but he says nothing, just nods to me before strolling further into the graveyard.
I lay my plastic bag flat in the grass and sit down, and Tilde comes to rest by my lap. I scratch behind her ears and move my hand along her nape and back, and so we sit in silence until my wrist is tired and it’s time to part.
“Sit,” I say and she winces, knowing it means our time is up, but looks a bit more eager when I put my hand in my pocket. She sits, and I put the bone-shaped little nugget in my hand on top of her tombstone.
“Until next year,” I say and stand up, ready to rush back to my car, because I still can’t stand being left here alone. So when she turns around, I do, too. Much better to say good-bye like this, with a trick and a treat.
The apartment is so still just now.
It is cool and gray outside. The news
speaks of spring, but that seems like a lie
as so many things do these gray days.
The cats, 8 paws touching, are asleep
on our bed. They release everything
when they sleep. The city is awake
but quiet. Lawns and dandelions
are the same, concrete and asphalt are the
same, glass doors and windows are the
same. I will pretend that the cells of
my body are sunlight making the
dishwater sky show a little glint,
a slash of color. The truth is a
rebuke because, in truth, my body
is a box emptied of secrets and
emptied of the slim, crescent moons of my
dreams. That said, I have always loved
pretending. The cells of my body
will have to ignore the realness
of another year about to pass,
the dreary fear of what comes after,
the mirror image that is not, can
not be right. I’ve learned so much less than
I thought I would, garnered less respect
than I hoped for. My underground is
rising to the surface. I defer to
what I have become and admire all
that I am not. I’ve been given a
quiet day; I will give up “what ifs,”
I will give up what I know is true,
pretend color and music then—shine.
Mother said big kids didn’t ask their teachers to wipe them and that if I didn’t learn how to do it for myself before I started kindergarten, I’d be walking around all day with poo-crusted cheeks. I now realize that this was likely a lie. Missy Vee, it turned out, was a very kind and uncommonly patient teacher. You have to be for kindergarten. Most likely, my parents were just tired of doing the deed for me. In retrospect, I don’t blame them. But, at the time, the idea of wiping myself offended me. So, began my journey into manhood.
I didn’t feel qualified. But Mom said it was easy, just a two-step process: first, you wipe until there’s no more poop on the paper, then you flush. See? Easy. And so, armed only with two-ply and willpower, I skipped to my loo and allowed my movement to pass.
I wiped.
The fall, drop, break
of peach white froth
sparkling translucent curtain
screening out sun
14 stories, three seconds
from bed to bed
from yesterday
deep into an unlabelled narrow chasm of the past
hypnotizes five visiting on-, through-, and over-
lookers
who, passing under the fall’s lip
behind the water
perpendicular
put out hands to touch
fondly recalling personal crises
Two taboo white birds skim the surface
Floating back upstream
I am well worn, thumbed through, creased at the edges
Always stuck on the same page, always mid-sentence
I can neither avert my eyes, turn thoughts, nor paper
For it is my life’ s work, knowing something of what’s gone before
But no clarity as to what comes next
I live in the now of uncertainty
No future, beyond skittish dreams
My imprint is not a doer, but a fence sitter
Who cannot jump till all the jumbled pieces are boxed
But life is liquid, ebbing and flowing
Formless, seamless, perhaps meaningless
Favouring the page turners who run blindly to the next staging post
Whilst visionaries awaiting the grand vision
Are left wanting – wanting to know
Does God give us patterns?
Glimpses of the eternal to send us on our merry way
Or are we just sleepwalking into nothingness?
Weighty questions, light on answers I fear
For the doomed among us, the poor dogeared
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