WORDS, TICKS and COYOTES
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Under no circumstances do I want to hear these words again:
We’ve had a lightening strike
and Netflix is gone
…probably for good.
Nor these words
that immediately set my witches’ broom ablaze:
Hey! Hi! Sorry we’ve lost touch…
Hate to ask this…but…
I need a kidney
…the sooner the better.
Call me back. Thanks.
oh…love you. Call me.
Then there are words so corrupted
so shocking
they should never be spoken
in a room warm with unsuspecting hearts.
Powerful words.
Chilling words.
Words linked to black and white horror flicks
and insane asylums.
And to the deep echoing of loosed monsters.
These words…
These words with the power
to send me screaming into the savage woods
where ticks and coyotes reign free
and attack with abandon.
Bloodletting words.
Blood-sucking words.
These words I should never, ever
have to hear
from a pipsqueak grandma.
I have multiple personalities, she says. Offhandedly. Casually.
I have multiple personalities slipping off her lips like melting butter.
And so it is:
one pipsqueak grandma
and four simple words
dropping like a grenade onto my mystical linen lap.
Linen I’d had shipped all the way from India
for certain occasions of spiritual wonder--
occasions like this…
Lilting fragrance. Cleansing sage. Feathers of magnificent creatures.
Bowls singing harmony with the afternoon sun.
And the shamanic hands of a healer.
Pipsqueak has mistaken kindness for an invitation:
I have multiple personalities.
Dropping it like a dirty bomb
on the clueless.
And here I am
all gray hair and crystals
tenterhook-waiting
for old Beelzebub—the phantom of darkness--
to slither its way up
from Pipsqueak’s belly
and spew thundering, demonic curses
scraped from the bottom of a medieval snake pit.
Pipsqueak’s feral head
slap-spinning mad and wild
on hunched-over grandma shoulders.
A conjuring of sinister forces...
And me without a crucifix
because I broke up with Jesus a very long time ago.
Ice covers the mountain.
Searing waves of heat arc from cauterized nerves
flicking embers at my broomstick.
Beyond the windows
pine trees sway in the humid summer breeze
where ticks lie in wait for sweaty blood
and coyotes roam seeking rotted meat.
Me—knee to knee with Pipsqueak--
propped up only by throw pillows and good manners
and tight knots…
waiting for Beelzebub
and its guttural sideshow.
Out of words,
breath,
and polite thought bubbles,
I gather wrinkled hands into my own wrinkled hands.
A relieving sigh of peace.
Peace forged from scent and candle smoke.
Peace that will not last.
Peace that cannot last.
The oxygen of human violence swells the air.
Its echo strumming a ghost guitar,
as angels of the fallen variety prick their ears.
Summoned by whispers of mangled innocence,
my own demon
—always fidgeting in my shadowed underworld--
heeds the beckoning call.
I feel it pulsing. Pushing upward.
Licking flames.
Gasping for air.
A lifetime dissolves into ancient ash.
Where escape does not exist.
Unleashed…crazy is on its way.
It is now unstoppable.
This is the law.
Ticks and coyotes wilding the forest
are insignificant
compared to what awaits me after dark.
It is the law of trauma.
There is no rescue.
And no victim escapes.
Khf/7.23
by Kathleen Hoy Foley
Under no circumstances do I want to hear these words again:
We’ve had a lightening strike
and Netflix is gone
…probably for good.
Nor these words
that immediately set my witches’ broom ablaze:
Hey! Hi! Sorry we’ve lost touch…
Hate to ask this…but…
I need a kidney
…the sooner the better.
Call me back. Thanks.
oh…love you. Call me.
Then there are words so corrupted
so shocking
they should never be spoken
in a room warm with unsuspecting hearts.
Powerful words.
Chilling words.
Words linked to black and white horror flicks
and insane asylums.
And to the deep echoing of loosed monsters.
These words…
These words with the power
to send me screaming into the savage woods
where ticks and coyotes reign free
and attack with abandon.
Bloodletting words.
Blood-sucking words.
These words I should never, ever
have to hear
from a pipsqueak grandma.
I have multiple personalities, she says. Offhandedly. Casually.
I have multiple personalities slipping off her lips like melting butter.
And so it is:
one pipsqueak grandma
and four simple words
dropping like a grenade onto my mystical linen lap.
Linen I’d had shipped all the way from India
for certain occasions of spiritual wonder--
occasions like this…
Lilting fragrance. Cleansing sage. Feathers of magnificent creatures.
Bowls singing harmony with the afternoon sun.
And the shamanic hands of a healer.
Pipsqueak has mistaken kindness for an invitation:
I have multiple personalities.
Dropping it like a dirty bomb
on the clueless.
And here I am
all gray hair and crystals
tenterhook-waiting
for old Beelzebub—the phantom of darkness--
to slither its way up
from Pipsqueak’s belly
and spew thundering, demonic curses
scraped from the bottom of a medieval snake pit.
Pipsqueak’s feral head
slap-spinning mad and wild
on hunched-over grandma shoulders.
A conjuring of sinister forces...
And me without a crucifix
because I broke up with Jesus a very long time ago.
Ice covers the mountain.
Searing waves of heat arc from cauterized nerves
flicking embers at my broomstick.
Beyond the windows
pine trees sway in the humid summer breeze
where ticks lie in wait for sweaty blood
and coyotes roam seeking rotted meat.
Me—knee to knee with Pipsqueak--
propped up only by throw pillows and good manners
and tight knots…
waiting for Beelzebub
and its guttural sideshow.
Out of words,
breath,
and polite thought bubbles,
I gather wrinkled hands into my own wrinkled hands.
A relieving sigh of peace.
Peace forged from scent and candle smoke.
Peace that will not last.
Peace that cannot last.
The oxygen of human violence swells the air.
Its echo strumming a ghost guitar,
as angels of the fallen variety prick their ears.
Summoned by whispers of mangled innocence,
my own demon
—always fidgeting in my shadowed underworld--
heeds the beckoning call.
I feel it pulsing. Pushing upward.
Licking flames.
Gasping for air.
A lifetime dissolves into ancient ash.
Where escape does not exist.
Unleashed…crazy is on its way.
It is now unstoppable.
This is the law.
Ticks and coyotes wilding the forest
are insignificant
compared to what awaits me after dark.
It is the law of trauma.
There is no rescue.
And no victim escapes.
Khf/7.23
