Resting in Peace

After he t-boned their ten-year old Olds,
I went to see them, she still pretty, he still fierce,

no hint that when they crossed the flat Indiana highway
a truck folded their sedan in half like a slice of bread.

My brother, the youngest child, smoothed a curl on her forehead.
I wanted to feel something, but they were

still themselves in death, young parents
who needed parents more than kids of their own.

She kept the house clean, her hair curled,
the children in line, the necessary lies close to hand,

tucked like a lipstick in her favorite purse.
Mostly they kept their chins up, struggled on

with only a few time-outs for his forays
into amphetamines, the crash and burn after.

 

This Morning Sank

Like a rubber raft punched by a pocket knife
down to the black hollows of Green Lake.
That’s my morning. My knife, too.

Now my dog’s dragging a deer’s leg bone
into the yard.

Dog stares at me for thanks, or praise, or something,
some sort of explanation. That I don’t have, will never have.
Like I can explain killing.

It’s like home sweet home, Father slaps mother,
chases grandparents out with Glock, one sister tears handfuls of hair
out of her sister’s head. Brother upstairs playing with pills.
                                   
I’m in the kitchen, mooning over the past with Life Magazine.
A picture of Maria Tallchief, dancer legs long

as a country mile.