My Mother’s Refrigerator
white-fleshed,
dead cold,
tumbled down;
Dad hasn’t said anything
about the ancient refrigerator
since we moved out of this house and back in.
Crumbled back there.
Decayed amongst decayed weeds.
Whipped by the winds of the moor.
The wind slithers across the chimney bricks, breeding a howl.
Rain slams sheets down
against every warped window
in this crooked house.
Through, I see the pale ghost of the refrigerator--
I see the specter
of my mother’s hunched back,
scrubbing that refrigerator
with the frantic force of a machine,
putting jars in leaning stacks
until the cancer cleaned her out.
Her gleaming pearl pride
now rots in the backyard
filling with acid rain,
drowning the jet black beetles
burrowed in the shelf ridges.
The rain ceases its torrent.
I step out into the earthy chill
of the April midnight,
bare feet slick on the scattered dilapidation
of a brick patio.
the violinist crickets commence their starlight ballad.
my mother
used to run me baths
with the same yellow latex gloves she
used to polish her perfect refrigerator.
my feet squish across the grass blades.
The rainwater is cold
against my barren calves;
the refrigerator
widens its gargling maw
to the star-spackled sky.
starshine is spread on the dead beetle’s wings.
submerged in the bath
in the refrigerator,
I glow silver moonlight
and the ghoulish fingers of my mother
weave beetlewings in my hair
with a squeak of her rubber gloves.
