On her chair, Mom would sag like a melting
candle—unlit. Bogarting
those Pall Malls that turned our curtains
to coffee
filters. Turned my sister and me into mourning
coughers. The moths
living rent-free along the lace died from the smoke.
To us
that made them second-hand siblings. We buried them in toilet
paper coffins,
played a scratched CD, sang them down a drain.
We thought
it was rude to change the channel then turn
to stone
in front of your kids. Mom, the Lincoln Memorial
with a beauty
mark. Always so unsteady on her planet
that never spun.
She never drooled but blood once trickled
from her nose.
I dabbed it with a kiss when my sister wasn’t looking. A cut straw still
in Mom’s pocket.
The front of her pants lightly dusted
like a chalk tray.
She got itchy. Not bugs under the skin, an itch
that melted
under the nails. My sister and I picked at her
neck like
a lotto ticket. She sat with her eyes closed, insisting she
wasn’t asleep.
The un-ashed cigarettes showered burn holes into her
chair. Homemade
craters on the arms. A homemade planet, indeed,
we threw away.