Photo by Etienne via flickr
You’re going to kill your father
repeats Mother as she smokes
her Pall Mall, letting the ash fall
from her hand
onto the flowered chintz chair.
Outside, spring mutters
murmuring changes,
tree branches shift from brown to gaudy
green almost overnight.
Dad reaches for his atomizer,
bulbous glass
object of rounded cups
rubber bulb on one end,
cork stopper on the other.
He uncorks and places it in his mouth,
squeezes the bladder
sending air across the brown liquid
that lives in the cups,
into his mouth and lungs.
He hands me the whole
of it to place carefully
in its felt bed,
making sure stopper is back
in mouthpiece.
He leans
back in his chair,
his breathing evening,
recoloring his face red to pink.
Tomorrow the pollen grains
will gild us again,
silent yellow dust,
pitiless overcoat,
as I keep my father alive.
Susan Eyre Coppock is a retired French teacher. She published Cardinal Days: A Coming-of-Age Memoir in 2016. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Free State Review, The Healing Muse, Constellations, and Juxtaprose.