twenty-twenties triptych
1. cataclysm: n., destruction which brings change
Upon my brow, my father leaves a kiss,
bise-atomic, healing with the glow;
My mother ticks an object off the list
of items her stepmother won’t let go.
I did not watch my grandfather descend
into the earth in January chill;
I did not move away from home and kin
expecting that I left behind the world.
The child waves farewell upon the pier–
he does not know to what he says goodbye.
The young man writing in his window chair
finds comfort in remembering the lie
that change is swift and rare, but age reminds:
Our cataclysm walks in step with time.
2. tee ess elliot’s wasteland, baby!
the courtyard of the fae’s seen better days.
these vines are dead. the flowers all turned brown.
queen mab’s upon the throne in drugged-up haze;
tiresias is sitting on her crown.
titania– she warned us, so we think.
(does anyone remember what she said?)
some thought she had–maintain, she said, the brink?
the brine? the boat? the compass of the dead?
we’ve lost the plot. the orchard has no yield.
we’ll sober up upon its barren earth.
long past the time has come to bless the field,
long lost have we demeter to her search.
who cares, though? whet the iridescent knife!
we’ll balance wire-high and catch the light.
3. adam is eve
I have not slept upon my bed in weeks;
Abandoned it to seek my home and kin.
The road ahead seems now long and bleak
and all we have is scattered in its din.
Cacophony abounds; discordant talk
reverberates on every future path,
distracting us from choice of which to walk,
herding us like sheep to circle back.
My family divides; my mother dreams
of futures which have never been my call.
My father takes at value that which seems
impossible for those who know at all
the man I am. The woman they assume
is wonderful; but she’s not in the room.
Cover photo by Bernadetta Watts
