The Memorial

I’m having a memorial for the side of the bed you slept on
Demolishing doubt as if it were a vacant building without stairs
There was never a way to the top

I watched how she loved them
Slipped them into her camouflaged bed
Day break left a stench of a third world battlefield
We were the refugees holding our noses and tears
While stray bullets alarmed the thin walls with naked echoes

She fixed breakfast with gun powder residue still on the tips of her fingers
Spreading crushed grapes on burnt flour
and un-clumping oatmeal that clung to her rushed entrée
Her good-byes always sounded like she was the understudy in the school play
Re-assuring her lines to say them on queue
but praying to Buda that she didn’t have to memorize the entire part

: MOTHER TELLS CHILDREN : “I Love You”

She struggled with connection and they struggled with commitment
And now, I am convinced that the beds she laid, I now have to make
Karma rehearsing the reversed hours
that every woman’s husband spent in her bed
Kisses used as sedatives
Wiped off like mud off shoes when entering their TV sitcom homes
with stairs to climb to the top to reach their children’s rooms and kiss them goodnight

: FATHER TELLS CHILDREN : “I Love You”…
and climbs into his rehearsed bed of deception

Where was my casting call in this production?
My heart has become the understudy to my head
This cluster of pain that is dress rehearsing in absentee
I never caused this war
Love should not be my battlefield
The aftermath of too many nights between wrong and diluted passion
has some how found the address to your offspring’s
I want to return to sender
But the last place of residence for you has been demolished
All that was left
Was a BED
Empty
Worn with dented body prints that have aged the stitching which held its frame
Rusting from abandonment but still there
Doing its karmic duty
Making sure our beds would remain
Empty
Void of loves gun powder….

I am having a memorial for the side of the bed you slept on
Day breaks and I’m bullet proofed with the understudies goodbye’s
Rest In Peace ECHOES…..