Mary Rose

playing detective in my own memories

mosfet mobsters chewing gum shoes

tantalum whiskers on the amber cat

we broke the bat

pushed a hole into the cardboard hat

cat-piss lingers lingering memories

fingering a fetish a totem

(she kept a basket of rosary beads

next to her chair)

a small beloved pin whose

significance is forgotten

(the double-wide smelled of antiques-

furniture polish, maybe?

and liniment and the propane stove)

the pin is kept carefully in a cigar box

with mementos nonetheless

(Jesus left footprints on the wall-

she got news from ghosts and

she always cheated at marbles)

there was a small gray elephant

in the garden and a statue of

the virgin by the door

(what’s a virgin?)

(a virgin is Mary, and Mary is a virgin)

I seldom saw her with her daughter-

she stayed close to Cadillac

after her eldest migrated

south, retiring somewhere between

Titusville and Neptune

(I slept on the couch and

she tickled me awake.

I was briefly terrified

and then embarassed)

there was a translucent blue

whale-shaped squirt gun from the IGA

in Harrisville, and a sailboat somewhere

with sand but no salt.

(she told me about shitting blood

when she had her first heart attack)

there is a small black Swingline stapler

in my desk; the desk and the stapler

were once hers.

she gave me the stapler and she gave my

brother something else equally useful.

she died like everyone dies;

I did not leave school to attend the funeral,

travel would not have been practical

at that moment.

there is a family photograph

in my father’s bedroom.

a score of sepia-toned citizens

in unfancy clothes, standing outside

a farm house; to one side stands

young Mary Rose, holding a small bundle

which if looked at closely is

a swaddled infant,

my own

grandmother.

(she had many spooky stories

but none more spooky than the

ghostly knock on her door

minutes before the phone rang

to tell her the awful news)

from her grave she can hear the lake’s moods

and the cries of gulls:

motherless, godless,

singing of simple joys,

simple sorrows,

and the fish

that Jesus left behind

on the shore.