But what if it's all made up? . . .
Yeah, that too, I suppose,
as if the time spent doomscrolling
during a funeral service
for an ex-something or other
is a gambit for a throwback
to your elementary school
where a paperback writer
is hawking Endurance
gazing over Edwina's shoulder
to peek at her page numbers
while Sister Edward
bedridden but not brainridden
insists Growing old is for the birds . . .
your cremains sit on a mantle
in a silver vessel
staring down the vultures filing through . . .
then the moment refills
and the class visits classmate Billy
in his albatross of an iron lung
and later that summer,
handing over a quarter
to a carny in a side show
to walk through a trailer
for a look at a young woman
in her own iron albatross . . .
eyes wide open
upside down in the mirror . . .
the day slamming air brakes
on the momentum of life
in a one-horse before dawn's early light . . .
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| Gabrielle Rigon |