She lies again in lineament, white accenting pink.
If she had crossed her heart, she could not have been
More truthful, at least there, at the beginning, when
I introduced you to her, and she grasped your hands
In hers, two sets of veins throbbing, harmonizing,
A nod, its far distance reflected in four corneas, eyes
Otherwise seeming to consider the other well. Ahem.
We were spendthrift. Marble should have been pine.
Talk and oozing ounce of eyeful sorrow should have
Been sorrow. The choir edging us all in should have
Been one plaintive soprano and a saxophone’s hoot.
The dozen upturned drumsticks at the post feast
Should have been a slight expanse of sliced tofu loaf,
Slathered with a vegan barbecue sauce, carrot shreds.
No padre should have talked about my father. No nun
Should have stood behind him and nodded amen, amen.
Children of children should have danced up to the altar,
Dressed in scarecrow clothes, cornstalks in their collars,
Spat upon the floor, dislodging stalks as they tangled
And chanted in a sing-song hopscotch talk,
That Johnny had a plain stick he hit his big head with.
