Dear Father, 

 

Where has she gone?

When I came out to

her,

she wore a black-lace veil

and mourned the death of

her grandchildren

 

Little, little mirror

Crisp like an ironed dress shirt, youth is mummified in a premium, Kinko gelatin coat.

‘Look how beautiful you are’

‘I was once beautiful, but now I am fat and old.’

Years of staring into that mirror pulled the skin towards it,

And left sunspots from the distilled sunshine,

And sucked the color out of hair,

And eyes,

And freckles,

And into the photo.

 

As the corners yellowed, so did teeth.

And dough lips grew down to bury them

Deep in your stomach.

 

My mother’s laughter from my parents’ bedroom,

It’s haunting.

 

It slides against steamed carpets and makes the floorboards creak.

 

The walls stretch out their spackled necks

To hear something thought dead.

To chatter from the tomb in which it was buried,

When the little mirror awakens and meets your glance,

 

It is haunting.

 

She is holy

Holy hell is she beautiful.

Sometimes her perfection bubbles

Up on her vinyl, bark skin and

It is holy.

The word she spoke is

Divine. Like milk chocolate or sunshine,

Silent and soft and

It is holy.

She is an artist and she

Weaves together the fantasy and factual

In which she caudles the lonesome and

It is holy.

Her stretch marks are like

Tense rubber bands that threaten to snap

uncoiling her completely into the wind and

It is holy.

Her hair boils from her head and onto her face

Like a tremendous cloud or pooling black smoke and when

her pearl stars shine through

it is holy.

 

The grass was so green it was blue.

The earth turned soft.

And I sunk.

Penny and dime colored waves washed over me.

Schools of clouds idled by.

Roots coiled around my ring finger

Like wedding rings

that you had pulled apart

 

Dear father, where has she gone?

I have lost her.

I am lost in her.

 

Your son.