BardBliss: Paralysis

The back of a marble angel in the basilica in Buffalo.

Listening to:  Oh, these lyrics.

Today's Bliss Formula: A big cleaning day.  Yes, I hate to clean, but there are those big ones when afterward the whole house feels scrubbed, and for a short while, all else feels as if it too has been ordered and organized.  As if cleaning the house is the same as cleaning your brain.

Paralysis

As if in a morgue

waiting

to (not) identify the body,

we sat side by

side on the velour couch,

sticking with static and sweat

to our matching polyester skirts --

yours a peptobismol pink,

mine a Floridian turquoise.

The outside filtered

through the diaphanous

sun bleached sage lace

curtains at our backs,

occasionally sighing at us

with their breeze-blown selves.

We gripped

the handles of our

plastic grass-filled Easter baskets.

Waiting.

Not looking

at one another

but straight ahead

as if the piano

were making a speech.

My knee socks dripped

down toward my ankles but

I did not reach

to adjust them.

Your plastic barrettes pulled

themselves out of your fine

golden hair -- hair that would

darken over time

as mine would turn white.

The clock ticked

from the kitchen and

the silence

did not lessen

our fear.

When our mother finally

came to take

our picture -- with her red eyed smile --

we smiled too big.

But we sighed and air

reentered

our lungs.

We laughed too

hard and talked too

much for the rest

of the day.

--christine c. reed