shrinking up, aka i would give up my singing voice for a cig
the absurd shoe in the absurd room
the absurd effort of cheer my angry foot,
my swollen calf, it’s a long way to fetch him
from his moldering place, his such-a-small room
in such-a walled in house.
i am a scurrying mouse, arranging the cake,
the candles, small plates of sandwiches,
fishing through the ancient drawers in my father’s house while
my brother sits silent in his chair.
oh, lost forever lost brother, would it be too much to ask
to at least have vision as you navigate through the fey-
wild upside down of your full-of-horrors head?
oh, gods of the perpetually-saddened, plague him no more.
i still keep a lighter in my purse and so the candles
are lighted and extinguished inside my herculean awful
effort of the birthday song happy happy happy happy
and that not-quite-right cake i made
that sad cake eaten in the flattened-out kitchen
of the old house still playing on a loop the relentless
sounds of the long-ago young man patrolling
the floors at night and the soft sounds a mouse makes
folding herself over and over,
smalling and smalling
until only a residue of what was long before this
remains
