Photo by Thomas Stephan on Unsplash
The most trusted man in America hung on my wall
Charcoal smudges like tire treads
Slashed onto tea-colored paper.
The nameless actor who played
The whitest of Jesus Christ Superstars
Doleful eyes made cartoon-like with a #2 pencil.
A surprisingly accurate Charles Manson
Insanity and intent in the chalked lines
Just just a portrait not a statement.
An enormous black and white Dracula poster
Painted in neon glow-in-the-dark colors
Lugosi’s teeth bared arms raised like a spectre.
Paper torn into jagged quarters that flutter in the air
In anger and disgust a wild ripping sound
Mixed with wailing loud as slamming doors.
My father would not remember this
How the floor rose up blurred and solid
My body dissolving into its scuffed veneer
Amid the barrage, lying still calculating the injury
To the drawings to my very young self
Imagining a path to a friend’s basement. And then distance.
Decades and brief visits pass as yearbooks.
In a drawer under sweaters, the pieces are all there
Repaired and stored, the taped seams curl ochre.
The devastation accepted. The detritus archived.
The artist renounced, The future revised.
Still still contemplating the blame and considering forgiveness.
Rachel R. Baum is the editor of Funeral and Memorial Service Readings Poems and Tributes (McFarland, 1999) and author of the long-running blog BARK! Confessions of a Dog Trainer. Her poetry has appeared in Journal of Expressive Writing, OneArt, Poetica Review, Crosswinds, and The Raven’s Perch, among others. She chairs the committee that will select the first Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs, New York.