note, not the cymbal of the garden shed,
but the chord that my mother's breast expelled
that roused me from my swinging seat
when
at just past five on the last day of July,
four eyes grew large around
a huff of sheet and soot and soil
that refused to move
at the end of our lawn.
We tiptoed ‘round stained blades of grass,
through glass, shattered,
like after a high note hit hard.
The head, we expect,
is what collapsed the shed.
Fred- we knew
from the stitching on his severed sail,
that failed to open until
it caught its web, too late,
on next door’s pipe-
once whole,
was torn in bits and lumps too ripped
to know where they came from,
and spat out in our garden seats
like chewy, picnic meat.
In her slippers, mother shuffled,
stood aside to contemplate,
post tripping on that sneaky shoe,
with Fred's foot still attached,
still threaded into.
Choking on our tongues
like trumpets stuffed with dusters,
we pursed our lips and stomached it;
hummed scales in minor.
We swept
his guts from the bed of daises
and his tufts of skull the breeze toyed with.
We pulled fingers from the plum tree,
a toe from out the garden hose,
and washed the shock from the window.
Signing sheets without blinking,
for sweaty weeks we didn't sleep.
Well, just enough to believe it had been a dream-
for the radio to buzz
a story that no longer belonged to us.
The only thing that's left
is a jumpsuit's single thread
that sways from mother's metronome.
We see it swing from the garden seat
but we do not sing anymore.
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