Romeo Bones
       

Allergies today are puffed up
with caterpillar bones, old loves
and arbor tidings, pushed
by a humid wind,
moisture as fleeting as grief
for the death of second cousin Emma,
whom you used to play Lawn Darts
with on sunny summer holidays
when the family gathered
and gawked at the grill, as they do
now, talking of investments
in appetite, the politics
of meteorology, the state
of affairs of beer, the
demise of demise now
that everything's okay.
It's not okay you want to say,
and you do say, but you're
the youngest so no one listens.
Emnma hears you and laughs
through the smoke, slings
a Lawn Dart so close
to your feet your toes tingle
with the expectation of pain
and the utter desire
for utter attention. Romeo Bones,
Romeo Bones, she says
and you laugh but you have
no idea why. Pretty soon,
everyone's laughing and you don't
know why, but you laugh,
pretend to be in on the joke,
in on the whole thing, the punch line
missed, the world you're afraid
might be getting away
from you, the parents
who might not be your own,
the sky that might not really
be blue, the blue that might
not really be blue, the grassy
rug that might one day be
pulled out from under
your tiny feet.

Tweet

Copyright © 2013 Ron Paul Salutsky All rights reserved
from Romeo Bones
Steel Toe Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission