Future Aubade

When my father died at last, I did not attend

the funeral, having no broom to get there.

In another state I ate my lunch and pretended

the newborn white foals in my stomach were

pillars of bluest granite for his sake. His wife

and her children, all loving and stupid, spoke

their lame honors over his coffin, before it was

lowered into the lampblacked teeth of slumber.

To honor my reputation, I dressed in scarlet

satin. Days passed. The foals became stallions

that galloped and sweated, running their races

to make money for others. Awake or asleep,

the filaments of my life haunted my slumber.

Ablaze with faerie fire, I could not concentrate

and all I touched blackened like silver in green-

est seawater. I used my thirty pieces to buy a

smorgasbord of hot wings, and gorged myself

till I was sick with blue memory. Buffalo gravy

dripped down my chin and stained all my shirts

with the blood of the delicious reptiles all culled

to grace my dinner plate. Abating to bed then,

I rested fitfully and dreamed I was forgiven my

sins by the rector of the neighboring parish. My

father, his loose skin a gasping pale blue, van-

ished into the kiss of night, a flock of moths

spilling from his exit wound. The stallions were

culled and turned into glue. I woke in a sweat

and a fever of epiphany, seeing the course I

would take in the morning. I dressed in darkest

blue. Heavy with cold stones, I tried to drown

myself, but the creek was mere inches and I

was just muddied. A farmer passed by then,

and gave me a scolding for trying to throw my

life away, as he helped me up and drove me

home. I said nothing to my mother about all

this, one scolding enough for me. I washed my

clothes, the day fled into dusk, and I fell into

sleep. The fever then passed, as most fevers do.

Author's Note

Published by Last Leaves Magazine, Issue #8 (pg. 78), May 2024
https://www.lastleavesmag.com/_files/ugd/dccfc8_38f316ba0fca47d0a33b2a1f73fe26d6.pdf

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

Full of emotions, visual and playing hide and seek, line by line.. gaze and re.read! Your view of life and death is an overflowing well, so much to weep over, so much to wash away the moment you went from there to all of that all around. Can understand why you've been published more than once and recognised as being to the fore. Fine writing, unique turns, grazing time as you go line by line, by phrase and thought.
Fascinating!

'Abating to bed then,
I rested fitfully and dreamed I was forgiven my
sins by the rector of the neighboring parish. My
father, his loose skin a gasping pale blue, van-
ished into the kiss of night, a flock of moths
spilling from his exit wound. The stallions were
culled and turned into glue. I woke in a sweat
and a fever of epiphany, seeing the course I
would take in the morning.'

What a fever!