Crossing the parlor floor (in your patent leather
Mary Janes, size four)
to pray over
the body of a man you
loved
for eight years,
you stop to hide under the seat of
a crushed red velvet
and much sat upon chair,
and you have to wonder:
will anyone find you if you stay here
forever?
Forever seems like a long time
but it might not be so long
if
that coffin were just a bad joke
your dad came up with,
and he suddenly sat up,
smiling at you and your grieving mother,
your pregnant, crying sister,
and your balding brother who doesn't know
in four years
he will have a heart attack
and four kids under his belt
at the age of 27.
It's not hard for you to believe
your dad would play such a trick -
Remember the time he told you he was going to
a dance
then showed up with oatmeal
and a pumpkin
on his head in a Halloween haunted house?
Remember how scary - he looked just like
Frankenstein
even without the oatmeal on his face.
Your Daddy always was a prankster, and the
best
tickler
in the world.
You're not thinking,
as you crouch behind your velvet hideout,
watching
black-heeled pumps
and leather
loafers
pass by
(crushing the flowered
carpet beneath them as they pad
toward your father's body,
laid out on crushed red velvet lining),
that in twelve years you will pad
softly down a crushed white velvet aisle
without the man who lies there calmly
(while your crushed red velvet
young eyes
glance toward him,
hope that he'll stand up)
standing at your arm.