Rhapsody Ecstacy

The line of black umbrellas, a funeral procession
of tight lips, of clicking heels against
the chipped stone teeth of the old man's smile-
arthritic fingers creaking as
he conducts the ceremony.

Swaddled in dirt, I lie, watching the spirits
that came in on the night's sour breath-
tongues flap like umbrellas in the wind, opening
and closing,


Sucking in, I nurse at the breasts of the
woman, her prune skin
draped loosely over a frame weathered
and mapped out
by sailors cursing blue their fate;

slowly, her Appalachian-curves
and mustang eyes
draw them in and they lose themselves,
become  lost somewhere
in her creases.

These spirits are the sailors,
lured by the siren's
ivory flesh and electron lips-
like the old woman, they sit listening
to their rocking chairs creak,
listening to
the tv static and the voices in it-

They all come from
the same house, the one where smoke curls
from the chimney and loses itself
in the moonlight, and
you can't see the stars for the
streetlights' smug, electric glow.

When the funeral is over,
they think I'll go with them.
The old man's wrists are flying faster,
fingers snapping,
sour breath catching up the spirits
as it comes to an end.

The old woman grabs me,
but I slip through her fingers
small as an atom,
and catch a whiff of her breath
matching the man's in sourness,

and I watch them as they leave,
black umbrellas
collapsed stars against the horizon.

I shrug off my dirt garments and
feel a stronger pull, one
that will take me
away from him and her, her and him,
and where the streetlights smug electric glow
fades,
to become stillness