Notes for a Narrative
1. in cleavage and fear of the dark of the second-grade school desk rests his mother's photograph 2. loss, perfume of soft Saturday evenings, mouth moist with attended love 3. and a voice a soprano note held and yearning to slip into palms, pulse next to him in pew 4. in pew her voice ringing down the spine welling its drift from a choir loft 5. or, climbing the stairs clutching her side for cramps she feels the months fall and rest to be studied in the bathroom light 6. there is drama played out in the strain in passion he can't see 7. indifference to the weight of groceries lifted in each Saturday hands numb from lifting, listing 8. small drama of frozen foods odor of onions in brown paper bags—small gratitudes in mesh—the cans and cans of Cragmont cola-9. there is a resistant tendon 10. an arthritic shoulder howls beneath his touch II. my mother told me a story
Joe Bonomo is the author of Vanishings from That Neighborhood (Kent State), selected in the Wick Poetry Chapbook Competition. His poems and criticism have appeared in The Ohio Review, Colorado Review, Pequod, New Delta Review, Quarter After Eight, Popular Music, and elsewhere. He teaches at Northern Illinois University.