Friday, September 30, 2011

my mother takes a snapshot of my father before church on a summer Sunday morning ...





my mother takes a snapshot of my father before church on a summer Sunday morning ...

the sun is too bright

the day too hot

the whine of blue flies

fuels the memory of something

old

stale

and rotting in the centre of her soul

it's as if

some ancient taboo

has rekindled in her a cold flame

igniting something frightening

piloting her up from the deep sleep

of her dead life ...

his face is a blur where he stands motionless

just a bedlam of greys to her

then a chaos of colours

indistinct except for his cruel mouth

which gapes open and shut

shouting at her to hurry

and gulping at the hot air

in failing operatic gasps

that become maniacal howls

while she struggles with the camera

she is

confused by the machinery

that twists his features into a sharp focus

and the vibrancy of the image startles her eye

as if she were seeing him for the first time

he is a reverberation of someone she saw once in a newsreel

the same postage stamp moustache

his rat's eyes peering from the wounds of corpses

expressionless

vacant

pallid ...


the fluid green lawn seethes

whispers to her to steady herself

to take aim

and shoot

it's not what she wanted

not what she hoped for

not really anything more than a snapshot

but she relents, squeezes her finger

and shudders when the camera explodes

with a killing flash

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2011. All rights reserved.

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