It’s been a hell of a long time since we’ve talked like this.
You being dead for all these years hasn’t helped.
I know the phone number you won’t answer, the land line
we’ve kept in the house we’ve kept, even after Dad died,
which, finally, is something—maybe—that you know, unlike
your grandson—grown now—that you won’t. Mom,
we’ve reached the turn, when one is more remembered,
another more forgot. But should someone read these words,
it would be impossible to say exactly who is which. Strange
how notes of Bulgarian rose, jasmine, honeysuckle,
lily of the valley descant the moments of everyday life—not
when I am gussied up for dancing, your birthday, an anniversary.
It’s odd times I think a full Arpège of you, the powder, liner, brushes
on your vanity, a black orbed-bottle, the size of a child’s heart.
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Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. His poem “BBC Cosmology” was nominated for the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. He is the author of the chapbooks Catch as Kitsch Can (2018) and The Last Bridge is Home (2021). Find him on Facebook or Twitter (@RoddWhelpley).