Sandra Yannone – Cadmium Red

since I was nine, since she’d acquired

a portable oxygen tank and elected never

to leave the house until she died a year later,

a December boys’ basketball away game day.

I kept official score, driving to games

in the puke green Delta 88, my family’s

compromise to keep my grandfather off the roads.

Day after day, I smiled back at the polyester

car dealer seated next to my grandfather

as he promised me a car off his shifty lot

when I graduated high school

while my homework and I waited

for my grandfather to finish his drink, his

slurrings about college and good grades

and college to the other town drunk.

The line of bottles behind their heads

reversed order in the mirror spanning

the length of the bar. Sometimes I saw

my own reflection beyond them, but I couldn’t tell

whether that girl knew the smoke in all

those talks of cars and days to come.

Comet

Whatever the sky has
Given me in name

Or action, whatever
I’ve betrayed

While the night shielded
My every move,

Whatever celestial body
Streaked across the sky

To let me know
I was alive,

I could for years
Never come clean

To the fact
That I was

Alive, that I
Deserved living.

And so we come
To the green,

Gritty powder
In a shiny foil can,

Pixie dust for
whatever ailed me

As if I could sprinkle
The chalky lime

Anywhere and scrub
The problem of living

Away. Comets
Are not shooting

Stars. Or are they?
Are they more rare

Than an eclipse
Or an equally befuddling

Cosmic phenomenon?
My grandmother

Would ask me
To scrub the bathtub

Clean, then go
Over to her sister’s

And do the same.
The cleanses

Becoming ritual
After I returned

Home to where
Behind every door

The secrets
Built up

Like tree rings
Around the porcelain

Vessel. I could
Not captain

Anyone’s life,
Let alone mine.

I was not here
To scrub clean

Every aftermath
I witnessed

But did not
Speak. I could

Not use that
Household

Product to make
Everything sparkle

Like all those
Commercials

Where every
Woman smiled

Effortlessly as
She vacuumed, stars

Shooting from
Her perfect teeth.

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® Sandra Yannone