Grief Lesson #14

by Farley Walker

 

I will teach you, woman,
to let go of perfection.
I will choke it out of you
with the finite smell of smoke,
and I will climb your blushing walls
with russet arms and auburn legs.

I will share with you that beauty
cannot be planned as I unshape
soaps into liquid and fashion
wood into ash. Family pictures will snake
and curtains will gambol in my tracks.
It will take me only minutes to devastate
what took you years to craft.

But do not worry for I will
also coach you in the art
of defeat as you run to the sink
to turn on the water and know
it will never be enough.

 

© 2006 Farley Walker

Farley Walker found the wine job she was looking for and moved to California. That is not to say she does not miss her family, friends, and the underrated complexity and craziness of her home state, Mississippi. Her work has been published in/on Wicked Alice Poetry Journal, Juked, Ink Pot, 4 AM Poetry Review, and others, including the first issue of Southern Gothic Online.