Mr Mascellani's Musings

Cakes, bonnets, booties, roses, posies –

Agnes, you’re going to be awakened
one night and told
you’re a widow
because of a random act of violets
bloom. Spring, summer,

Fall.
Push, Agnes, push.
It’s a boy! He’s
(decades pass)
a memory.
He’s not the first
and not the last.

Winter,
Snap snaps and kills Crackle and Pop.
The Little Mermaid, now human,
feels the cut of razors with each step she takes.
Paint drips into Michelangelo’s eyes.
A castrato screams.

Push, Agnes, push
though your bones creak and crack.
Push Charlie, your rooster, along
in the old black pram.
Push him down the road,
shuffle on home.

Rock, Agnes,
rock in your rocking chair.
Rock and nurse Charlie in your lap.
He’s still. He’s cold.
He does not heed the crowd

that’s gathered to torment you.
Wipe their spit from your face.
Sing, Agnes, sing.
Sing, in your pain-borne blood voice,
a lullaby that will lull away their secret fears.

Cakes, bonnets, booties, roses, posies-

PFFA Crits