The smile your father saw in the wallpaper
had nothing to do with your mother. There
were dozens of faces in the flowers, had he
taken the time to look. Many of them were
weeping, buckets of wisteria. Still he was
right to ask for her hand. The scorched
curtain that sent him away five years later,
however, was right on the money. It meant
Take the children. She’d have burned you
in her sleep.
                    Your grandfather would still be
alive if he hadn’t trusted the gulls. They were
lost when they passed over his boat, nowhere
near land. Your grandmother’s vision that night
— the ship’s cat soaking wet at the foot
of her bed—well...that was a kind of grace
little seen anymore.
                                Indeed, a deep breath
has been cut from this evening in error.
Put it back. It comes when you step
from the shower. You need a moment to see
the mirror; the veins of steam forming a shape
beneath your reflection. Let it remind you
of a word & go to bed. Ignore the patterns
in the ceiling. No good can come of them.

© Brendan Constantine, all rights reserved. An earlier version of this piece first appeared in Spot Lit. It also appears in the chapbook “Birthday Girl With Possum,” due out Summer 2009.

Brendan Constantine is a Southern California poet and champion for the literary arts. He teaches at the Winward School and is well known for his workshops at Venice's Beyond Baroque. He performs his work across the United States.(more)