Lips
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Our cars were used and named after singers,
our cats always Siamese and dying.
Which fails as zen or science, but helps
explain why Ethel, our ’58 Fairlane,
was stalled on a muddy road overlooking
Pocatello, and why my mother in a whatever
shade of lipstick was holding a dead cat
wrapped in Visqueen. She had errands
to run, and Dead Pet Hill was on the way.
I dug, she watched. Deep lipstick, suggesting
what—aloofness and downtown commerce?
Or maybe a lighter shade, to go with
the inside-out smell of rain and too much
sage brush. I don’t know the color.
But wet looking and waxy and a favorite
kind of candy all at once. She dabbed
her mouth with her hanky. It was April first,
her birthday. Which meant blue omelets
for breakfast, and later that night, noodles
and the whole fam-damily at the Shanghai.
But for now just me, my mother turning 47,
and a cat to bury. Easy digging, on account
of the rain and I’d already done my crying
over the weekend. Except for a few roots
and chopped worms, the sides chiseled
clean, as if I were uncovering a hole
already there. Her mouth was smeared.
Nothing like her practice lips—blotted
on a pane of tissue each morning and floating
wet and flat before she flushed them.
That impeccable smile. She was waiting
for me. We had the car to start, then errands.
Bakery, library, the florist, a utilities bill . . .
Me running the easy ones, the car idling
and warm. I wanted to save all that, and her.
The hole deep enough but making it deeper,
bending sometimes to touch the clean sides.