Your pages from the printer
are crumpled into balls,
set aflame. You call them stars
and name them: Antares, Betelgeuse,
Sirius and Sol.
The light-faded poster for Alien—
on the wall of your recollection.
In space, no one can hear you scream.
But you know your midnight bellow
caused ETs to cup their ears.
Your palms cradled the sand
when you went to the beach as a girl—
every grain a pinhead in the sky.
Whenever the dark arose,
you hoped your father was too
drunk to call for you, poor
ginger-haired child
with a welling in both orbs.
You never should have opened
the bedroom door. No matter
how passive the knock.
Who else was there to blame?
You titled your tetralogy
after mother, who kept
her tongue in a sieve
and uttered nothing.
Not even the proverbial
we never-ever talk
about such things.
The next morning, you thought of
what remained upon the shore:
a castle, peopled with the
butts of cigarettes,
ones he’d lazily tossed aside,
as you built
and you built
and you built while hoping
your ass wasn’t showing in the sun.
Andreas Gripp
RF Image
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