Charmi Keranen

DEER-DUSK OF AN EVENING


I take Mother’s bones to town,
sell them to the lowest bidder,

pennies on the ounce. She calls
in the morning, inquiring about

her shoes, Grandmother’s Cadillac,
other forms of abuse.

I unpin my hair and launch
a pineapple grenade.

Washington State phones.
Apologies for the trains.

Grandmother, surely, won’t survive the ride.

A waterfall slices in behind the eye.

Cousin Jean’s red Mustang
rots beneath pines.

The ’51 Ford in the barn,
16,000 miles. No one ever

drives it. It’s never been used.

Charmi Keranen has a BA in English from Indiana University South Bend. She is a freelance writer and a scopist/proofreader of court transcripts. Her work has been published in Slow Trains, elimae, The Salt River Review, jmww and elsewhere.