My mother was a butterfly, a grasshopper. She flitted between flowers, basked in the sun. She sparkled. She gave no thought to the coming rain, to autumn winds, to freezing snow. Her plan was not to plan.
I was an unplanned child.
I don’t play in the garden
without checking the weather forecast.
My father was a squirrel. He worried about what he didn’t have. He never had enough. He wanted to keep the nuts he gathered for himself. He stashed away lists of many colors to remind him of the promises he would never keep.
I rented time in my father’s
tree, expecting
to be pushed out, nutless.
Prepared or not, my parents’ deaths still caught them by surprise. They left behind a pile of stuff their children never wanted.
My memories are donated
so nobody will have to
throw my life into the trash.
published in The interstitial
Comments