were not long dead
they would remind me
of Anton Du Beke,
locusts in topcoats
feeding on puffed up
ladies who had eaten
half a grilled grapefruit
with sugar shrapnel,
chicken soup with knaidles,
roast brisket,
lemon sorbet.
I was sure a gigolo
would dance me around
though I was only fourteen
hold my skeleton
in a close embrace
and be paid for it.
Busy.
You tell me that over the weekendyou went to a wedding, a funeral, helped a neighbour move
glasses of bubbly, tears on tap and take-away sushi
I ask is that not too soon ?
the boy in the obituary photo, shirt held by a safety pin
might need your full attention ?
You say your brain is sending you down country lanes
otherwise you would smash straight in the wall,
meandering is keeping you from mine.
Sally Michaelson is a conference interpreter in Brussels. Her poems have been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Lighthouse, Algebra of Owls, The Bangor Literary Journal and Amethyst.
