We aren’t supposed to know so much about so much
The phone rings, the mailbox fills, the school bus and garbage trucks block the side streets. Horns honk. Sprinklers pop up. Like you do, flashes, in my peripheral vision. I believe in ghosts, never expected to but you died and life tilted to the wild side where fences and clocks stop, leave me wide open, squinting hard. Where did you go? I think you might be the chipmunk that eyes me through the screen door as I clean the house, the Sold sign out front. I explain aloud: Dad, we’re taking care of Mom. On its hind legs, the chipmunk stares. I keep talking. Dad, we sold the house. Mom needs to move. I love you, Dad. I am talking to a chipmunk. It skitters off. I walk into the kitchen, through the living room out to the back porch. The chipmunk is there now. Staring at me, through the screen porch door. Is that you, Dad? My father loved the chipmunks. Watched them dart into drainpipes, into the open garage door. Our neighbor stops over. We chat in the backyard. The chipmunk dashes by. Your father thought my cat was eating the chipmunks. Never let the topic drop. I know my Dad is listening in the drainpipe. Until I don’t know anymore. So I write it down.
Emily Scudder is the author of “Feeding Time” (Pecan Grove Press) and the chapbooks “Natural Instincts” and “A Change of Pace” (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Agni Online, Margie, New Letters, Harpur Palate, Salamander, North Dakota Quarterly, Ethel Zine, and other places. Visit her online at www.emilyscudder.com
Previous: Bear Weaver • Issue 14 • Submissions
The Mantle 