Five Unrelated Poems

Grandpa

My grandfather is dead. I don’t know what to do.
Everything seems wrong. Hard. Different.
My mind was clean, now it’s littered with thoughts and emotions.

Weekly visits to his house.
Laughing at me when I first realized grandma could run.
His peculiar circling wave goodbye as the car drove away.

I wonder whether my sisters are thinking of the pet names he gave them.
They hated those pet names. I did too. I miss them now. He never gave me a pet name.
I wonder why. I never asked. Would he have if I asked him to?

My aunts and uncles are five again, talking of “Dad” like he walked on air.
Now dead they fight over his possessions like two kids over the last cookie.
Funerals change adults to children and children to adults.

Television portrays death as a way to bring loved ones together.
I must have very few loved ones. Grandma. My dad. My sisters.
They all know. They all care. Grandpa is dead.



At Dinnertime

Humming birds during dinner,
table hovering.
Wings like tiny drums
as they fight over sugar water.

My mom’s home is so boring.



The Drugs Taken Before Surgery

Rolling down a sterile hallway. Sit-bouncing on the bed.
Parents giggling. Their child had never been so happy?
Giddy and excited,
The boy doesn’t realize where he’s going.
He doesn't understand why he's there.

Understanding comes. Eleven years late.
His singing just won’t allow him to care.
Elvis permeates his private room.
There will be a record of him singing.
Hours from now he’ll care.



A Vision of Love

There is no such thing as love.
Romantic love is lust in disguise.
Barney knew this to be a fact.
He had seen too much.

He believed.

His parents had once “loved” each other.
With kisses and gooey eyes, they “loved” each other.
He didn’t have enough four-letter words
to describe how little he believed in their faded “love.”

Divorce was what he believed in.

He never knew why his friends
would hold hands
in school hallways one day
and fight by their lockers the next.

Friendship is what he believed in.

People of all shapes and sizes would tell him
how they lost their virginity. He never understood the point.
Especially when he was certain all relationships would fail.
Even the ones that lasted ‘til death do them part.

He believed.



A Wonderful Time

I open my eyes and wonder how much longer I have to wait.
Dad said I had to wait ‘til ‘twas light outside.
A long time. It’s winter.
I get up and peek out the window.
The sun’s not risen yet. The sky is still dark.

I haven’t slept much all night.
This night’s excitement always does this.
Two decades change excitement to calm for most people.
Not for me.
I read my new book. I am two hundred and fifty-three pages into it.

I look out the widow at page three hundred.
The sun is still not up, but the sky is lighter on the horizon.
It’s time. My parents would not agree.
Doesn’t matter. I run to their bedroom and jump on the bed.
Why?

I am a kid on Christmas morning.