denial

Photo Credit: kingplumbingma.com

This morning I frittered two
hours and forty-seven minutes
in the garden, pulling weeds and
deadheading flowers.

In the afternoon I
exfoliated, using homemade
bath salts stored in
a Vlasic pickle jar.
Spent epithelial cells sloughed
from my body, swirled
down the drain.

The summer I was
thirteen, our next-door neighbor
watched us, hands cupped around
her eyes, over
the redwood fence.
(We pretended we didn’t see her).

By the time school started,
she was dead of a brain tumor.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where the theme offered by Kelvin S-M is poetry that happens in the bathroom. There should be some fun things happening here to day.

Process Note: There are obscure references to numerology in this. In the Tarot the Death Card is Number 13. All of the numbers in the poem relate to this.

Submitted to Leo’s Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/ For today’s theme we had to use the letter “X”–not the easiest one. So I sort of cheated. If I’m not mistaken, the number xiii, thirteen represents the death card in the Tarot. So, yes, here’s another death poem. Please note, I will be away till Tuesday with limited Internet access. I’ll do my best to keep up but may need to return visits next week.

xiii

This morning I frittered two
hours and forty-seven minutes
in the garden, pulling weeds and
deadheading flowers.

In the afternoon I
exfoliated, using homemade
bath salts stored in
a Vlasic pickle jar.
Spent epithelial cells sloughed
from my body, swirled
down the drain.

The summer I was
thirteen, our next-door neighbor
watched us, hands cupped around
her eyes, over
the redwood fence.
(We pretended we didn’t see her).

By the time school started,
she was dead of a brain tumor.

We denied it all.