The Clean-Up -- a new poetry cycle

A quick explanation:  I am not someone who can write every day.  I write in bursts, and usually around some event.  This particular collection of four poems comes from the event of cleaning out my grandmother's bedroom, ergo the collection's title.

“Maundy Thursday”

The Times taught you to carry coins with you all the time,
Now the years fit in a silk purse.

I see the Queen handing out money on Maundy Thursday
Charity, you taught me, begins at home.

I’ll keep it for you.


“Ace Bandages”

For two people well until they weren’t
You kept quite the collection of Ace bandages.

What wounds did you bind up and release
Over
Over
Over again

Can’t forget the claws!
Sharp enough to hold it all together

And make you bleed again as necessary.

When did you finally bind yourself up so tight
you imploded within?


“Days of Bread and Rosaries”

Ah the trappings of Italian Catholicism!
Rolls of bread wrapped in tissue paper to commemorate St. Anthony
Crummy way to remember him, no?

Sorry for the pun, but I can’t help it
A small grove’s worth of paper later,
Religion transubstantiates into ridiculous

I write this and know it’s only ridiculous to me
That the bread fed a hunger in you
That I have long given over to starvation.

You did always say I was stubborn.
At least we share the Rosary
Fifty prayers chanted to someone we both know listens
And almost never says yes
Often says no
And usually says nothing

But we did anyway
Because it calmed us
It gave us power

You ate and were filled
We spoke up and it wasn’t our fault if no one answered


“Fantasia”

I held my breath when I found the papers
You blew them out of my hands in the breeze but I still looked.

I always wanted to know, and sometimes asked, even though it is ultimately not my business,
And I never got a straight answer anyway.

The facts:
Born, June 12, 1955
Died, July 22, 1955

The Myth:
At a funeral you pointed to a distance and said,
“Your uncle would be that age.”
That face has been my uncle ever since.

He looks nothing like him.

The reality:
You lived with an agony all consuming.
My questions are nothing.