The Show Must Go On
I found this line
blurred on a faded post-it, thin as a Julep
mint, between folds
of your wallet so broken
at the leather seams. A simple inheritance,
your lingering refrain.
The Show Must Go On,
a forgotten fragment
of weighted legacy.
This spring twilight
I have smelled the bourbon
crafted by our Virginia gentleman
in cut glass over ice crushed
and enveloped by young mint.
I have heard the echo of Mother’s fraught
urging, the generations’ monogram,
to “grasp the frosted pewter,”
you and I both fallen branches
of the family tree, so bitter-
sweet the never-quite-fitting—
never-quite-able to play the part.
We found ourselves stateless, preferring
Pinot, and there was your murmur…
The Show Must Go On,
this remembering, a selection,
omission, loss of longed for details.
Drunken laughter at our inherited dysfunctions,
those late Sunday afternoons at our East Village café.
Sweetest sibling language,
like two debutantes drinking wistfully,
cigarette smoke curling around resonant words,
now a bourbon-less
brother-less world,
fatal consequence of a narrow closet.
What foretold your final curtain call?
How the streetlight framed your face,
your dimming stage lights,
one lasting reminder.
The Show Must Go On,
however slurred
and bitter as mint.
Author Photo Credit: Jay Miller-Foulk, she/they