Porshe Garrett
Editor-in-Chief
My sister is marrying our father.
Our father and his warm brown skin, tightly curled, clipped afro,
a charming gap between his two front teeth
where all his venom hisses through.
He stands 5’11.
He’s a stilt-walker, a tightrope-treader,
a window washer with his feet dangling in the air
as he sits with a perfect view on his lunch break, tuna sandwich in hand,
looking at all the people so much smaller than his lofty heights.
He hunts their moving specks and brings his thumb and forefinger before his eyes
to squish them like ants.
He’s a fast food manager, a mechanic, an usher,
a detective, a warehouse worker, a chaplain,
man of many hats, and hands
and fists and apologies and clenched fingers and sorries and,
and, and, and.
Our Father who art not yet in Heaven,
who art never in our home
except for when his bills run too high
and he seeks out the warmth of mother’s bed,
her scrawny-armed embrace, her long limbs
stretching out the actions of an even longer lineage.
My sister’s eventual husband is 5’9.
She wears flats so he can stand tall as her in his faux-leather boots.
Pale-skinned, blue-eyed, ubermensch,
slight southern drawl, and country boy politeness.
Hands in his back pockets and yes ma’ams and no sirs.
He raises his hand in the privacy of their house and the slap echoes out
far-reaching to five, ten, twenty years ago.
Echoes back to waking up to phones being shattered against walls,
and red blue raving police sirens,
cradling together in the bottom bunk,
running to shelter in the living rooms of concerned neighbors
and their noise complaints.
He slurs out in our father’s soft voice
motherfucking cunt
as smooth and easy
goddamn whore
silky soft syllables
just you fucking wait
you gaping legged, loud-mouthed , nobody
singsong reverberations against the walls.
Flipped tables,
dog howling at their feet.
Someone has moved the painting
to a different frame, modern and sleek,
and that picture never seems to fade.
My sister will have two girls when she wanted boys.
She will wear a face lined like train tracks through mountains.
Her hair goes ghostly gray in her forties and she gets far too into pilates and health
supplements.
Vitamin D, and rosehip oil, and stretching
to strengthen her abdominal muscles and build up her core,
all chronicled careful instructions in her journals.
We go for lunch and in her features, I find our mother.
She wears her like a ski mask grafted onto her face,
fabric stitched into skin.
She sighs as she people watches
What’s wrong with the world these days?
Asks it like it’s a question no one’s ever thought up before.
Our mother’s cadence catches in her throat.
My sister is marrying our father.
I objected to this incestuous relationship,
but my words circled her head like
an endless loop around her seashell ears.
Ouroboros, our father, our legacy,
our blood and our love consuming one another.
Our mother’s smile takes up its own seat
as she watches her daughter walk down the aisle.
My sister is marrying our father.
I think we’ll both cry on her wedding day.