Eagle lifting a rose? Or was it a heart?
And each remembering differently through her own
wounds
and having to know and remember correctly,
sees nothing to do
but enter on the sly the little parlor
where their father lies on the velvet bier, or the body
of their father, as they say,
dressed in his best western shirt and bandanna, new
Levi’s
pulled down over lizard-skin boots.
Beyond the curtain a steady chatter circles the porch,
and against those utterances of grief
and consolation, an electric guitar
wails down Saddle Street, something like coyotes
in the hills above the sheepfold.
The arm they’re after is wedged against the wall
and they struggle to slide back the bier,
an inch or two, a little more
then his thumb drops off his buckle
and the arm falls.
Voices of family futter
in the hallway, a shadow brushes the curtain.
They lift the arm, a log in a sleeve,
and lay it across his chest.
One tugs lightly at the shoulder of his shirt,
and cut down the back
it peels away, the other raises the camera.
Years of envy and misgiving,
malice of injury and middle-age,
still they smile at that flash of old mischief.
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