“Fossilized Remains of The Day” by Sheree La Puma

The death of childhood robbed you of memories.
I told you your money’s no good in here.
I laughed as you tried to frame the sky
With aluminum pipe,
Then found you naked with the fan running.
Everything we owned was stapled to the sun.
Oh holy one, I see your soul strung up like a pinata from the orange tree.
Why did you lock me out of paradise and swim laps in her bed?
I wanted your dick on a stake.
I wanted you to marry Lorena Bobbitt.
When you escaped
They celebrated your second coming.
The next day you washed our clothes in Jack, hanging them to dry
in the blue-violet-purple nuclear fallout.
Did the scars on my face give you direction?
Your dark eyes mask the jagged shards of self.
When you are parched, dry and rotting, there will be no water left
in the well of salvation.
They will bury your fossilized remains
Next to a yucca tree in the desert.

Previously published at The Mad Swirl

Sheree La Puma is an award-winning writer whose personal essays, fiction and poetry appeared in such publications as Burningword Literary Journal, I-70 Review, Crack The Spine, Mad Swirl, The London Reader, Gravel, Foliate Oak, and Ginosko Literary Review, among others. She received an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts and taught poetry to former gang members. Born in Los Angeles, she now resides in Valencia, CA with her rescues, Bello cat and Jack, the dog.