Sirens

When my father was singing
his song of death and the day moon
dipped so close to our house
you could kiss it,
we visited our other house,
the one I grew up in.
Lost relatives danced
under the pecan tree and eyeless
Muff rose from her backyard grave
to rub cold bones against me.
Carl and Glenn hung upside-down
in the chinaberry tree and 'god
bless everyone but Harry'
again threatened to flip me head
over heels til my pigtails fell loose.
My heart fell to the ground.
I tripped over it.
A Chagall sky draped me, the
clock of time burning one hip.
My father's death rattle rode in
on the rising wind, warned me of worse
losses yet to come but, like Ulysses,
I blinded myself. Those lying
sirens would not fool me. 




Pris Campbell
©2009

 Published in Boxcar Poetry Review 2010

Also in my chapbook, Postscripts to the Dead






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