Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Fifteen Winter 2007 |
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Election Day Memorial, 1984 Sari Krosinsky Death was six months old. Me, six years. Josh sat beside me on the torn leather seat, greenhouse-hot in spite of the November chill. We waited in the car for his mom, my dad in a church in line for poll booths. Didn't mind my dad dating, though this older boy could make me squirm. Josh asked how my mom would have voted. "I don't know." What a question. He said, "Why don't you ask her?" Browning leaves speckled the windshield in shadow, stuck in the wipers. Autumn-- a convenient metaphor, though death wore spring that year, a Mother's Day funeral. "She's dead." "You can still ask her." Like I couldn't come up with a better question if I could raise the dead. Not why she's gone; I knew better. Nor where; I didn't want to know. I said "Mondale" to shut him up, and because Reagan's eyes were crooked in the first-grade newsletter. The sun slipped behind the boardwalk a few blocks down, behind the hidden dunes. I had no questions. The end of the street was far enough for me to see. |
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About Sari Krosinsky |