What is the relation between Figure A and Figure B?
This is what the father has become.
That which is gone already?
Two feet, white with calluses, miasmic.
Who breathes in the room?
A girl on the bed, a daughter.
Only one then?
They won't deliver him to her, her palms, little petals.
Untouched?
Untouched. Yes.
Will they arrive then?
The wilting body is unmade on a soiled bed.
What color is the cusp of absence?
A selfish collection of coins in the dresser drawer.
Mine come that way.
A redefinition of what smell is.
Is there a terrible thing?
There are A and B and some curtains drawn tight to lock the room.
There is the scent that I will remember for many years.
This is what happens before the figure disappears?
A row of unkempt stones they call heroes.
How is the pain endured?
A stem of grass imagined when it is not raining.
All those things called intentions. The private treasures one keeps safe.
"Last Days" from A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering by Dawn Lundy Martin. Published by the University of Georgia Press.
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