My Mother’s Refrigerator

white-fleshed,

dead cold,

tumbled down;

Dad hasn’t said anything

about the ancient refrigerator

since we moved out of this house and back in.

Crumbled back there.

Decayed amongst decayed weeds.

Whipped by the winds of the moor.

The wind slithers across the chimney bricks, breeding a howl.

Rain slams sheets down

against every warped window

in this crooked house.

Through, I see the pale ghost of the refrigerator--

I see the specter

of my mother’s hunched back,

scrubbing that refrigerator

with the frantic force of a machine,

putting jars in leaning stacks

until the cancer cleaned her out.

Her gleaming pearl pride

now rots in the backyard

filling with acid rain,

drowning the jet black beetles

burrowed in the shelf ridges.

The rain ceases its torrent.

I step out into the earthy chill

of the April midnight,

bare feet slick on the scattered dilapidation

of a brick patio.

the violinist crickets commence their starlight ballad.

my mother

used to run me baths

with the same yellow latex gloves she

used to polish her perfect refrigerator.

my feet squish across the grass blades.

The rainwater is cold

against my barren calves;

the refrigerator

widens its gargling maw

to the star-spackled sky.

starshine is spread on the dead beetle’s wings.

submerged in the bath

in the refrigerator,

I glow silver moonlight

and the ghoulish fingers of my mother

weave beetlewings in my hair

with a squeak of her rubber gloves.