Waiting

I waited for my baby brother Aaron

to get out of the Army

—intelligence and engineering experience under his belt—

so he could take care of those sweet-faced kids he’d fathered

before he knew how Sandy was

after the Prozac stopped stopping her

*

I waited for Marcus, too,

to get out of debt

after Uzbek loan sharks found him

blowing powder

off the abdomen of that bony bowling alley shoe check chick

who lavishly adorned herself

—multiple rings on her ring finger—

and helped herself

five finger discount style

to bring her sisters over

*

I waited for Mammy

to get out of the house

to start living

with the full-time nursing and

the over-cooked baby carrots and

the overheated rooms and

the white walls and

the endless chair rails and

the bumpy slow windy ramps and

the too-tall toilets with long white corded pull strings and

the out-of-tune baby grand with the bouncy keys and

the plop-and-bubble fish tank with its icky blue Tangs

who couldn’t be bothered to race

between the crusted glass walls of their universe

against which uncomfortably dressed sugar babies

too young to visit their nanas

incuriously rapped pasty knuckles

triggering tsunamis,

each epicenter marked

by sticky bun fingerprints

*

I even waited for Jamey

to get out there

to sing

professionally,

her symphonic pipes glorious long before the training

—pitch perfect notes stretching to the apex of King's College

along the Backs

where she

frolicked in the fields

photographing docile cows amidst waist high amber grass and

grabbed jacket potatoes with tuna outside the Anchor and

slipped along the slowly sloshing River Cam

—beyond the Bridge of Sighs and Mathematical Bridge and St. John's—

punting with the locals

drinking ciders and ales

indulging in deep fried breaded brie with red currant sauce and

luxuriating on the softest slumpy blankets and

reinventing innocence and

dreaming away her time

in the storied spaces where I

once

hoped to find

my voice

someday

*

But no.

I waited.

*

first born,

it fell to me

to wait

for the furniture to wear

the rain to dissipate

the weeds to thicken

the bulbs to burn out

—my invisible mettle to rust—

that someday

I might find

myself

no longer waiting

for something to say

***

Copyright © 03/01/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.