The Grit: Poetry
Absent/Present/Truant (for my father)
birthed under the quartermaster's heel* of Depression in a Seminole south. a knotty-haired brown boy skips rocks beside a gator's nest. peers through pockets of swamp air while her dough heavy heat sticks to skin denying cool.
carved from a brick and mortar father and sweet water mother; I suspect dissension bleeds from the brown boy's veins. finds Philadelphia during their divorce. before wilson goode's MOVE* penny candy and segregated schooling push him ahead. comes of age beyond shadowy Korean moons and Vietcong rice fields. in a backdrop of ammo littered thickets of jungle and blood splattered fatigues; death is dressed in camouflage. scarred lullabies hum as mind makes sense of Draft. trumpet, piano, trombone are his conduit because music always chooses her charge. in far east barracks jarred by rhythm of attack, he knows they are losing. hears it in a key change. his melody wears a crescendo to bed.
a truant father during his tours. so I am thankful I wasn't thought of then, when dad was but a letter written at a battlefield's edge. I have only known the present man: even-tempered brilliance with an affinity for Cadillacs, medium rare steak, and red wine.
after 31 years of presence, I meet the disease. cancer's tendrils do not recognize military service, uncanny intelligence, or spare good men. I stare at debilitation in the cold metal of a wheelchair and hospital bed unable to change soiled sheets and stained mattresses. so I wipe down commodes. become entranced by the noisy grooves in my yellow rubber gloves. I cut ragged fingernails. rub cocoa butter on half-healed sores and flakes of drying skin. keep discomfort/shock at bey because the brown boy's mind remains in the know. our more than surface conversations remind me of this.
I, now nurse as much as daughter have met my truant father's shell. I do not like him. it is difficult to know this man who is only a fraction of my father: stooped. pained. weakened. needing me more than I ever foresaw.
*Quartermasters were combat boots worn by military men and women.
*Wilson Goode was the mayor of Philadelphia when bombs were dropped on the MOVE's (a black nationalist group) headquarters.
Fear of Toilets (My Therapist Looks Like a Lumberjack)
my therapist
looks like a lumberjack.
speaks with a Southern
Bible Belt slant
listens from a banjo's core
of Alabama clay and
March on Washington eyes.
I find myself looking
for what I'm supposed
to feel in his
bramble beard.
immediately, I like him.
he and his slate-colored
hillbilly hair
he and his singular tie
that should be flannel shirt
he and his clipboard and ocular frames
that should be ax and trucker hat
soon I accept
that the purging
of echoes
inside my grief
is a whole lot like
chopping down trees.
so either way,
this man is qualified.
I've decided I trust him.
Today we converse about
happy places
coping skills
deep breathing
and why I despise bathrooms.
Bathrooms with their soap scum
frosted mirrors and skeletal
toothpaste remains.
Bathrooms with their Fantastik
nose clogging cleansers
and most evil toilet bowl brushes.
I fear oblong shapes and
tiny handles, whirlpools
and flushing sounds,
terry cloth towels and ceramic
commodes cemented to linoleum floors
Finally I tell him outright:
“Toilets scare me.”
especially the ones
with the top down.
especially at night.
especially when the bowl
doubles as morgue
the last place I saw my son
fully formed
size of my hand
arms outstretched
head full of hair
dangling from my umbilical cord
four months into a pregnancy
I was just beginning to accept,
just becoming accustomed to,
just beginning to like,
to love.
Fear of the toilet is irrational.
Fear of the toilet is irrational.
FEAR
of the toilet is
IR-
RATIONAL.
especially the ones
with the top down.
especially at night.
especially when the bowl
doubles as morgue.
my therapist looks like a lumberjack
together we chop down my grief
saw it to stump
weave its emerald leaves into visions
where my son always runs
and jumps and smiles and plays
he laughs in a language of butterflies
in this place there is no
jarring screech of a flush
no whirlpools turned crimson
by the ineptness of my womb
no guilt streaked mirrors
no linoleum floors reverberating
shock induced gags
no terry cloth towels soaking up
clotted lullabies
Fear of the toilet is irrational.
Fear of the toilet is irrational.
FEAR
of the toilet is
IR-
RATIONAL.
especially the ones
with the top down.
especially at night.
especially when the bowl
doubles as morgue.
I chop down my grief
saw it to stump
weave its emerald leaves into vision
where my son always runs
and jumps and smiles and plays
he laughs in a language of butterflies,
holds my hand tight
and tells me,
wooden see-saws and
pink-orange sunsets
are his favorite.
© 2010, B. Sharise Moore
