Surrendered whilst squandered, the singsong of so long, adjured in black and white noir-past futures in sutures, I solemnly swore to forego my mother and father. Sitting reluctant, at the stand awaiting a never arriving cue from the man who promised to defend me, in century old film hue, children aggigle, ceilings so high bright lights as the fiddle, plays second to you. The phone call came from overseas with sylphic tones of her that breastfed as the suckling night did swallow me. The stars, the automobiles that whirred, clunked far, on recently paved roads that led the way to my barefeet bleeding sway to a place called the United States. “Sleep,” I heard my mother say,” and don’t cry-it is far too cold to cry”. As a tear fell slowly from her dark-swallowed eyes and landed on my dry, trembling lips. Tap, tap, tap…on the sheets the three four count of a lacrimosa la hermosa, and at my side laid my sisters’ ghostly moaning, whimpering gently in a far and better place.

The door shuddered with a handful of bangs from fists of three women with demands; two aunts and the ghost of another which had sent them. The drab and dismal domicile that had held a fatherless family for a while, leaned and breathed a shallow breath. Mother hen and her three chicks situated in hiding from the biting black magic winter of the wraith that writhes -Matamoros Mexico-the land beside where many go…to hide, and many others…fade and die.

“Rose,” came the syncopated voices as their fingers caressed the splintered mess of a wooden plank we called a door.

”Who is it?” My mother asked as she released her grasp.

”It’s Adele and Jane,” rang the witches’ timbre. “We are here to speak to you about the boy. Genevieve believes him full of promise and she does ponder on his health and joy.” Quietly they muttered to themselves as mother untied the broken rope that held the door shut.

“Come in and watch your step,” she said as she bundled in her thickest threads.

”She wants the boy. And you know he was born with rights of citizenship of New Roma. She is his godmother.”

”He is my first born. And he is so very young-I do not know how aware and bold, ready he may be to see her gift through.”

And with a candle dancing in the dark with hardly the power to light the room with its failing spark, my mother down on bended knees, despite the cold dirt floor, and siblings motionless in a twin bed housing one plus three, she hovered with a smother and asked me as sincerely as she pleased, “Son? This is your chance for a better life. What say ye?”

”Yes,” I simply said as she levitated above our heads, her flowing dress, a folding ballet of all the things she failed to say-thrusting into frames thusly-in forms of rank mares, the revenants of time unaware-and now I decipher as a man anyway. 

She descended with a warm embrace and I beheld an angel of disgrace; insouciant I remained, with brewing devils to await, a summoning to court for blame. The occlusion met me obsequiously at the spaces between two chapters: Enter Texas, or As The Childling Cowboy Finds the Further Still, and  The Hell Begins with Tender Flames.

As I walked away without a word to say, my sisters yet sleeping, my mother said, “Come here, you little asshole and give your mother a kiss.” That was the last time I’d behold her countenance.

 

Opus, O Opus

my hands have

owned us

my fingers type

at the machine

and they do owe us

O mother

I have heard your voice

now as a man

and I wince at its timbre

And for all that it stands

There is a dream that

comes with ease

I make love like

fuck with ease

and you, the vessel

me the please

I must admit to dry

old eyes

and bleeding between

your trembling knees

Heaven meet Hell

and grant me

Passage

this

Pilgrimage

 

 

∞