Wednesday, April 25, 2012

mdcxxvi

My usage is more violet

Mom made mine purple.  I wasn’t all
royal on anyone’s ass.  It was the 1970s,
a pretty color.  Tonight I’ll meet Yong for a

drink at the Mix.  Last night Otto and I
purchased a small artificial Christmas
tree.  And a few decorations.  Including

a rooster and a turtle.  We are emblem-
atic, like violets.  So is my tongue
tonight.  Or vaguely so.  Does this make my

tongue ironic or iconic?  “Tonight’s aperitif
will be Bedlam via [long I] Bedknobs and
Broomsticks, as read by Angela Lansbury

impersonating Dick Van Dyke (poor
Roddy McDowell).  From what faraway land
my purple blanket might have come (as I dreamed

all feminine, a routine my brother & I called
Grace & Odessa (I, Odessa).  Our bedboards
we dubbed “Springing Things” – from each of which

all things material could be conjured.  Except one.
Mine couldn’t spring a dishwasher and from poor
Grace’s, never a sewing machine materialized.

We kept ourselves awake through Carson, each night
a new episode.  One summer our other brother
played Grace’s husband.  Or, rather, Grace’s husband’s

body.  He’d been crushed by a wrecking crane.  We
snuck out of bed for an hour that night to attend
the funeral.  Somberly perching ourselves in front of

the casket.  A cedar chest.  My mother’s hope chest.
We’d learned to finagle it open without the key.  Dunk
our heads in like ostriches and inhale a forest of cedar.