Mixed Marriage

"We are not like other families,"

remarked my father

impaled sideways through his head by a stick,

feet dancing in thin air.

My mother wore black crepe

though her husband lived yet, suspended,

and I, the fruit of her womb, refused her invitation

to stay still beneath her fingers at the bottom of the bath.

We had a dog with a nervous condition

and a ghost in the basement by the water softener.

My father covered the story and his un-impaled eye,

seeing old sweethearts in his dreams.

Mother tried to move me into the basement incinerator,

but was prevented by the ghost. 

Daddy liked swing music and Dixieland jazz,

insisting the stick was a clarinet and the dog Benny Goodman,

And though not observant, he did walk on Saturdays.

__________

for Sunday Muse #134, where I am hosting.