Ben Kline
Aubade
The dawn yellow ghost, loitering
past my bare feet and footboard,
isn’t my mother. The idea
I would be her haunt
would make my sister laugh
like our mother laughed
if we called a weak trump
in euchre, she would defeat us
in the first three hands.
She dealt us bad attitudes,
coagulations threatening
to break loose, a grief
clogging my right ventricle,
lethal pooling I’d like to tread less
each year. It’s been two years.
I’d like to sit a little straighter
against its centripetal pull,
but the ghost seems uninterested
in my thoughts, isn’t wavering
like most mirages. If it’s a ghost,
not my mother with a to-do list
for the vacuum, dishes, acceptable
ways to conceal your illness, a warning
to be less like her, I wish it would
breeze my cheek, rattle any buckle
in the closet so I’d know I’m not
imagining the first beams through
the blinds slicing it, some form
of severance, divided provenance
were I a poet, not her son
who’d like to worry less
about thrombosis or a stroke.
Who’d tell her ghost it’s fine,
I’m fine, go trouble my sister,
she still has questions
I’d answer like a ghost, gone
once I rub the crust off my eyes.
The dawn yellow ghost, loitering
past my bare feet and footboard,
isn’t my mother. The idea
I would be her haunt
would make my sister laugh
like our mother laughed
if we called a weak trump
in euchre, she would defeat us
in the first three hands.
She dealt us bad attitudes,
coagulations threatening
to break loose, a grief
clogging my right ventricle,
lethal pooling I’d like to tread less
each year. It’s been two years.
I’d like to sit a little straighter
against its centripetal pull,
but the ghost seems uninterested
in my thoughts, isn’t wavering
like most mirages. If it’s a ghost,
not my mother with a to-do list
for the vacuum, dishes, acceptable
ways to conceal your illness, a warning
to be less like her, I wish it would
breeze my cheek, rattle any buckle
in the closet so I’d know I’m not
imagining the first beams through
the blinds slicing it, some form
of severance, divided provenance
were I a poet, not her son
who’d like to worry less
about thrombosis or a stroke.
Who’d tell her ghost it’s fine,
I’m fine, go trouble my sister,
she still has questions
I’d answer like a ghost, gone
once I rub the crust off my eyes.
Eulogy
My mother was
the hornet entangled
in my nape curls
when I moved
too close
to her gray paper
heart thrumming
above, her stinger
igniting my fingertips.
I tried to free us.
I tried to
fling her back
where she wanted
to remain.
My mother was
the hornet entangled
in my nape curls
when I moved
too close
to her gray paper
heart thrumming
above, her stinger
igniting my fingertips.
I tried to free us.
I tried to
fling her back
where she wanted
to remain.
Under Grandpa's 1957 Ford
Dad tells me to tighten the drain plate
until the bolts squeak like they hurt.
The wrench clicks less each ratchet,
Or, like Aaron when you talk too much,
and inside our laughter I know the sound
he means, blaring from my left knee twisted
under the volleyball net at the ‘91 reunion,
under cousins shouting in banjo and fiddle
about Pearl Jam in the boombox.
That first squeak produced a scream
everyone heard, and Mom helped me
limp to the truck, a ziploc of ice
she tucked in the leg of my jeans
soaking both socks and shoes.
This truck, he says, was an antique
when I was still young, forgetting
I remember them then, his shirts
always unbuttoned April to August,
Mom quick to kiss him every time
he appeared, his laughter easy
after any tease about my girly curls
he warned would invite lies and open thighs.
He never specified whose.
Listen to your gut when it tells you to run
was the best advice he ever gave me
about love, even though he meant lust
and money, which he’s saving
this afternoon, using my good knee
to keep the creeper steady,
the anaerobic quiver of my forearms
securing the last bolt as he pours.
Anything? he asks, and I say Not a drop,
as if either of us could still move
fast enough to stop a leak.
I hadn’t imagined Mom dying
changing us for the better,
but here we are, old and middle-aged,
fixing this truck that hasn’t run in twenty years,
laughing when the plate shifts, oil all over
my face, slicking my hair, my gut
telling me I have a few more years
and a long hot shower ahead.
Dad tells me to tighten the drain plate
until the bolts squeak like they hurt.
The wrench clicks less each ratchet,
Or, like Aaron when you talk too much,
and inside our laughter I know the sound
he means, blaring from my left knee twisted
under the volleyball net at the ‘91 reunion,
under cousins shouting in banjo and fiddle
about Pearl Jam in the boombox.
That first squeak produced a scream
everyone heard, and Mom helped me
limp to the truck, a ziploc of ice
she tucked in the leg of my jeans
soaking both socks and shoes.
This truck, he says, was an antique
when I was still young, forgetting
I remember them then, his shirts
always unbuttoned April to August,
Mom quick to kiss him every time
he appeared, his laughter easy
after any tease about my girly curls
he warned would invite lies and open thighs.
He never specified whose.
Listen to your gut when it tells you to run
was the best advice he ever gave me
about love, even though he meant lust
and money, which he’s saving
this afternoon, using my good knee
to keep the creeper steady,
the anaerobic quiver of my forearms
securing the last bolt as he pours.
Anything? he asks, and I say Not a drop,
as if either of us could still move
fast enough to stop a leak.
I hadn’t imagined Mom dying
changing us for the better,
but here we are, old and middle-aged,
fixing this truck that hasn’t run in twenty years,
laughing when the plate shifts, oil all over
my face, slicking my hair, my gut
telling me I have a few more years
and a long hot shower ahead.
--
Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, storyteller and Madonna mega-fan/ podcaster, Ben is the author of the chapbooks Sagittarius A* and Dead Uncles, as well as the collections It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature,) Twang (ELJ Editions) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems.) His work has appeared in Poet Lore, Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry, and other publications.
Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, storyteller and Madonna mega-fan/ podcaster, Ben is the author of the chapbooks Sagittarius A* and Dead Uncles, as well as the collections It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature,) Twang (ELJ Editions) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems.) His work has appeared in Poet Lore, Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry, and other publications.