The Elevator

November 4, 2009 at 8:41 pm (My Bonnie, Poetry)
Tags: Catholic High School, cigarettes, death, grandson, lung cancer, mother, nuns

by Kelly Salasin

in memory of my mother & friend, Bonnie Kelly Bradley,

Christmas Day 1942 to the Feast Day of Mary 2000

Klimt (pregnant) (visipix.com)

Now that This
is done
She’ll die…

I have never Known

my Body like
This before

that Something

the size of a

Cantaloupe
could Push through
Me

in an Instance

Labor, Unknown (visipix.com)

Reconfiguring my
Everything!

He breathes
against me

the Two of us
Come through
a Storm

Crouched
in a Puddle
of  blood
Wrapped

in bath towels
Cold,
even though
it is Warm-
August

Collapsed
into this new
expression
of Separation

Tour (the newborn) (visipix.com)

I’d take that

Elevator with him

to Summer’s

End

1957

To the Curb

of a boarded up Motel

A covert block

from the cross-shaped

high school

my mother and I both attended,

two decades spanning

Our sophomore years.

I’d find Her
there

Raffael, Hypatia (visipix.com)

Shrouded
in exhale

Heaving a sigh
of Relief

That I wasn’t
a Nun

come upon her

in knee socks, buckled shoes
her shin-length pinafore snug
across emerging breasts

as she takes

a drag

of a cigarette

that she’ll

smoke

till the end of

her

Life.

We  Lock

Eyes

and I plead,

“PLEASE, Don’t.

Because some
day you’ll be
My mother
and he’ll
be Your grandson,
and Together we’ll
Watch
you
Die.”

Van Gogh, Skull with Burning Cigarette (visipix.com)