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Open Poetry #50
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The Marking of Lives
| Open Poetry #50 |
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The Marking of Lives |
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kevinjtaylor Member Posts 61 British Columbia, Canada |
The Sunrise was a low-end hotel on Hastings Street in Vancouver. The bed-in-a-trunk sequence was as described. The orange juice had a sleeping drug in it and the trunk-bed was used to separate children from parents or guardians without a fuss. '61. Alberta, Canada. This— This is the closest we have been in forty-seven years. Graveside, I close my eyes. See again, her lips smeared, her head turned, as she had lain unconscious. Whispers of Other Men— Immoral— Immoral living— Declared unfit for motherhood and I am only days from four. Before that, in white shift sitting at the foot of her bed, singing quietly to herself. Singing, brushing and lifting her hair. Letting it fall. She is lovely to me. Later that night, weeping, anger, fists and cries. At fifty-one I look like him. Fist-Man. Father. He wept in Irish taverns filled with weeping, singing drunks. She had danced the Sunrise on Hastings, whatever that meant. She was gone when I was taken. I was gone if she returned. A Child Welfare office filled with nervous women, children dressed in Sunday-best and a faint wash of fear— these memories, all memories, discomfit and jar. A metal cup with orange juice—warm, sweet and slightly bitter. The far end of the room. A bed made in a wooden trunk. Eyes slipping. Box lid closing. Sleep— Bewildered, pushing, opened, the room lies stark, white and empty. No mothers. No children. No one waiting here. The lump that rises to my throat is the same one— the same one that rises in spasms from my chest on that dark-boxed, white-roomed and room-filled afternoon. In forty-seven years I would stand above her on that overlooking hill. No words to mark her place, a plot numbered between other unmarked and numbered graves. Maybe she was gone again. Gone before I could tell her what had happened, that I was sorry, that I would be a good boy, beg her— find me. Eyes opened, I have waited long enough. The sun is hot. White lines trail across the sky. Paper from one pocket. Pen from another. I write. Roll tight and push as far in as this ground will allow. White paper, ink. Graveside for her. Wayside for me. A mark was kept. A mark was left. A deep breath in, not held and out. |
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| © Copyright 2018 kevinjtaylor - All Rights Reserved | |||
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2islander2 Member Ascendant
since 2008-03-12
Posts 6825by the sea |
such a sad "story",a poem very well written and keep highest interest all along, thank you yann |
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JerryPat2 Member Laureate
since 2011-02-06
Posts 16975South Louisiana |
A wonderful poem, of which you made it sound so realistic. These, from the heart poems, are poems I am so personal that I love seeing, and them.This one was exceptionally good. ~ If they give you ruled paper, write sideways. ~ |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
I am hoping SO hard that this is fiction . . . though even if it is, as you said elsewhere, it is truer than truth for some. I fought the tears, but they won. |
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kevinjtaylor Member Posts 61 British Columbia, Canada |
Hi OwlSA. The tale is real. Time is compressed instead of more spread out but the tale is no less real. Some of it is as I have been told. Other parts are from memory. I cried too. |
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