Florence Elon
Crash
Inside your head, over
again, the word
crash tolling echoes
of 1929... - the firm Grandfather
spent your childhood
building up, exploded
from the center.
You try to name the world
around you: wife, son, daughter
huddling near the ICU bed,
these fuzzy, flurried ghosts.
Your wife: the manager,
Sally or Sadie, you’re not sure;
son: a salesman you tried to please
at age eight, fetching bread,
potato chips and Pepsis;
I’m Dory or Dotty - office
bookkeeper - you can’t guess.
After your accident, Father
you don’t know who we are,
swarming beside your ears,
listening to your broken rasp,
These beds... guard rails...
mattresses thin as takeout burgers.
They bring warm water, tea, milk
round the clock, six pills:
you say they never work.
You rub your hands together
like sticks. Just touch
that radiator... never on...
I’ll catch my death.
They can’t fool you - this dump’s
the 14th Street YMCA. You ask,
what landlord stuck us here?
After the crash, the big slump...
Your pursed mouth sucks
at air, All gone...
everything we’re worth.
Florence Elon’s poems have been published by Chatto, Secker, several smaller presses, anthologies, and many journals.
Page(s) 40
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