AnnMarie Eldon

Intrusion

Forget the previous festives. The year begins with terror.
There is a gas impediment atop the ramparts of the kind
modernity proclaims too weak for suicide. Yet she would
snort it down her nostrils and torch carpets. It was always
her. The curvature of a sign, perhaps a taunt, predicated
upon drink times. How this strongholds the cleaning up
of present. There may be other wisps. Forest suggestions
for instance. Mournful weak westerlies. Cobwebs. A
dewdrop upon a bird's beak. Outside-this unvenomous
respite requiring no exactitude. A lover's redress. But
these lost in the clean-up haunt. All must be presentable.
She is coming back in five minutes. A threat list: hands,
crumbs, creases, any-use detritus. The smile steady
portrait squats behind steep. Here comes her feign-lipstick
stench to trammel the scorch parade. A nicotined rictus
and she is ever present as a weak dawn highlights chores.
There is nothing tenuous. Anything dirty heralds her
perfection. I lick. Mother ready. She appears within
a doorway, lights a cigarette. Stalks the night peace
more than half a century later. To test the chains
around the keep.