Install for Put'Em Up.
Dried flowers from a church yard and poem included.
When
"When my mother dies
I'll smoke my first cigarette of at least a thousand
that will inevitably end my life.
I will not make the bed, but turn down the sheets;
white wind hands will
paint her face away. I will not
wear white.
Ashes will descend upon time
and time turn to dust.
Dust will appear forgivable and blue.
I never will notice until 'warning' turns her light on
(Leave the light on, please),
I will do this nightmare a dirty favor
for my own peace and demise.
I will not recall Christmas decor.
Pink plastic lights
strung by papa's hands will not show
the twinkle in my short circuit.
I will not remember how
the blue ones gave away her grace,
with a foreshadowing too early for my liking,
as she stood in the kitchen
and made me eyes from scratch
to see through.
I will walk in circles around the wine stain
on the carpet floor.
I will not look for 7 a.m. sunlight squares
through the kitty door,
over-easy eggs and bacon
(kitty is long gone now).
I won't remember holding sermon on her chest,
sternums lain to rest,
mommy lying there without me
as I will be without my self.
I will string beads like spiderwebs
from their melting neck,
turquoises and pearls of hers,
and I will let them stay
a part of my body, as I
could not be.
I will not hear those songs I promise I would learn
but let die, those pipes in memory,
selfishly.
Guitars will invoke that nothingness
where a girl once sang along to a woman's chorus
in natural cause
that harmony remain sacred.
I will not remember, my ear to her stomach,
sounds of the blood moving.
When moo is gone,
I'll just let hair be hair. And hang there."
-Amber Tamblyn
