John Amen
PORTRAITS OF ANNE #11
The pale woman, I picture her now;
cancer, a caged gull,
flapping madly inside her liver.
Anne is outraged. "Why don’t you call her ‘mother?’
You remind me of a shark without teeth."
The sublimity of grief waxes banal.
My ghosts are as predictable as the tide.
In my wallet I carry a photograph of a boy and a giant,
standing on a beach. "Call him your father," Anne insists.
It is still uncreased; and I see, finally,
the subject is not them, but the sand between them.
"I’m desperate for something to crest," I say.
In the background, her television throbs like a cut,
pumping the blood of America.
With the tip of my finger,
I trace letters on my kitchen counter:
‘ALL MY WHIRLPOOLS LEAD TO YOU
CHIA JEN WEI CHI’
Damn Anne. The heat here never breaks all stupid summer.
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina Email: jamen32499@aol.com Publications: Twilight Times, Struan, Sanskrit, C Magazine, Independence Boulevard Editor Of: The Pedestal Magazine
