2 December 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 4
Fossiling
For my husband
Finished as the granite
we're down to our indents
now: pull your hand
from the rock & I'll dust
off the fernish armature
resembling our backs. Hello
—remember? Our broken
toaster chariot towed cans.
How far did the grooves
groove the roads on top
of roads like Costa Rica's
with the curb a mile from the mortar?
Why so much stone here?
How far did we ride our habits
& with what weight of stubbornness?
At least our children shone & grew
to be tall doctors (not rock stars),
got a vista from our counsel, vitamins
from my/our cooking. Where are you?
My hair got short—a poof—to remind
us of the past, of missing things
—that something's left at all. Wait,
that's schmaltz. Return the mane—
a braid could last us a morning.
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About the author:
Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is Assistant Professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Fiction Editor for the online journal, DIAGRAM. Her poems have recently appeared in Salt Hill, Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Juked, 5_trope, and also on Verse Daily.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Lauren Goodwin Slaughter at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 4, where "Fossiling" ran on December 2, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.