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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by By Kathy EganYou can tell her you saw me That simple phrase bolded italicized super-sized Nobel Prized reverberates in the air like the ozone afterglow of a lightning bolt or the dying wh-a-a-ng of the steel guitar in a maudlin country song She hopes Pappy wasn't confabulating fabricating exaggerating equivocating the words her estranged son uttered while a customer at "Pappy's Peanut Stand" (everyone knows 'Pappy's Nuts') the burial shroud around her heart loosens and constricts as rising expectations clash with bitter memories of hope splattered on the pavement like a murder victim's body "Peanut Man, don't be kind!" she prays "If you have cut and pasted words into the mouth of my son, please delete them." "I would rather go on as I have in the great silence than be subject to empty shells from Pappy's Peanut Stand." Pointing to the driftwood Upon the everflowing waters Of my love for my children I have cast my presents and letters Today they washed ashore in my mailbox With an epistle from the social worker "..the Department is not trying to prevent the children from contacting you .the children still refuse communication with you.." "Go ahead, keep trying," some friends have said Others ask why bother For the same reason that people leave offerings at a gravesite Or letters at the Vietnam Memorial Or messages in bottles They want to forge a link with their dead even if no response is possible My dead are still alive and deign to give no answer but I am not silenced. I will continue to send the gifts and missives Knowing that they will boomerang Because some day Edwin and Alisa may come to me and ask Mom how hard did you try And I will point to the driftwood as my answer Gulf Coast sand Ye cain't shake the Guff Coast sand from between yer toes, Kat," said Pappy in his official capacity as Colorful Local Character from the soles of my tennis shoes I shook the red dust of the Heart of Dixie along with the sand but a few sugary grains fell into my heart around them growing a pearl of memories and regrets in its milky depths I see the southward flight of my children borne aloft by the screaming of ill-chosen words in a flashpoint of anger I see my unwise turn at a fateful crossroads of decision and the ground-zero alienation courtesy of Gran, Pee Paw, and the good ol' boy legal system I want to sniff the tangy salt breeze from the cobalt Gulf before the muddy Monongahela stings me back to reality I want to watch the gulls swooping across the estuaries instead of pigeons pooping in Market Square I want to feel the pain/pleasure clicking of my psychological Geiger counter as I drive past the radioactive no man's land where Edwin and Alisa live I want to haunt Wal-Mart, Winn Dixie, and Foley Library hoping for a glimpse of them I want to "do it on the line" at the Flora-Bama with Pappy and Bobbi and watch the waves slap the impudently outthrust pinky finger of Alabama Point I need... to check in with Vince and Ken, my mentors who helped me return to school to visit the ladies at the gift shop of Lambert's Cafe to cry on the shoulders of my former instructors and bless all the folks who became my extended Dixie family after the defection of my children Pappy was right I'll never wash the 'Bama Gulf Coast sand from between my toes or dislodge the memory pearl from my heart ..and I don't want to Kathy Egan is a 47-year-old woman from Pittsburgh, PA, caught up in a private family tragedy that serves as inspiration for her poetry. You can write to her at e__5@hotmail.com Today's Situation
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