Surname

Dark, unforgiving skies, clouds of used tissue paper, weighted with lead.
So contrary to the miniscule pouch of joy below.
A bride, no younger than her sister, no older than her mother,
Painted, pruned, prepared, and prettied, the Christmas turkey in July.
Palms a mist, pianists’ finger’s trembling.
A groom, brew in tow, pencil at the ready, vows on his tongue,
Awkward and unsure, a foal to new legs, new life.
Shoes, tie, belt, (Ring?) too tight.
A gathering of friends and family, small talking, chit chatting,
Waiting for a union, a forging, an establishment of allies,
(Nazi’s? Mounties?)
In Sunday’s best, smelling of rich perfumes, colognes,
Turning toward the doorway,
As the wedding march resounds through the thunder claps.

A baby cries, no, howls, no, shrieks.
A ghost of a bride hauls it out of the cage,
A mirror of the prison cell of her mind, trapped by fatigue,
Thoughts, walls, skin, (Ring?) too tight.
A man in the next room delves beneath his down pillow, grumbling phrases,
A need; to sleep, to work, to feed,
Feed his disappearing wife, the painfully apparent child.
She peers into the mirror above the chest of drawers.
Wrinkles line her forehead, words lie among the grey skin.
Poetry of a whirlwind courtship, a non-existent engagement,
A baby born of a child.
Prose of law, order, faithfulness, religion.
Essay upon essay of duty.

A bond, of love, paternity, if not desperation.
A blind eye, or three.
A secret, at the very least one per finger.
A thumb, the gin beneath the sink, the rum upon his breath.
An index, the neighbours wife, the woman from bible group.
A middle, a pipe lit with sulfur matches, red rimmed, glossy eyes.
A fourth, the electrician, the brother, Ring too tight.
A pinky, vows an ancient, discarded, singular, shared memory.
The oblivious offspring who revels in the familiar scent ,
Of fathers stale breath.
Of mothers piano dust.
A graduation, a celebration, a relocation.
A foal new to legs, new to life.

The offspring in the world on its own, thrust as a young robin from its mothers nest.
The product of a past, a person, a person, and a name, surname.
The being of practices, habits, and rituals,
Grown from the seed of a soiled home.
Searching for a new life, a new name.
Boarding planes, docking ferry boats, maneuvering strange streets.
Introductions, surname withheld.
A chuckle.
No one in this town knows of the connection.
Your name does not wreak of your fathers failure, does not scream of the place you grew in, the people you changed with.
A heavy similarity, a black cloud on your driver’s license, a menace on your passport.
You withhold the dreaded name, not from these perfect, oblivious strangers,
But from yourself, the all too apparent child.

Bright, cloudless blue skies, fresh air, blooming spring, aromatic.
Unfitting of the small pocket of misery below, blunt.
Again the bride, but in ebony, void of her ivory.
Again the groom.
Again the black suit.
Again the loving guests.
But now the bride writes the speech, and has a disturbingly hard time,
Rooting up an appropriate display of dishonest despair.
A closed casket, not much left to look at, recognize, in any case.
Here there’s no need for introductions of names.
No one needs to know your surname, this is all old information,
They know the story as well as the name.
A room full of not so perfect, not so strangers,
You look down at your fathers casket, and the strangest of questions bombard’s you.
When you shoot yourself, do you hear the shot,
or does the bullet reach your brain before the sound?