Mummification

Dolores, wedged between the fetid hosiery of skin and marriage, sinks into beige, unravels and plucks from an invigorating circulation. Damn if she isn’t vertical as a dead marriage.

Lunacy of intrusion. Too much noise. Fragments scatter her. Diffuse outside terror. Unkempt choral clocks. Half-baked skies. Nights grope yesterdays. Hands circuit rooms. The uncle babysits. Her breath impotent. Uncle groans thunder. Bleary, overgrown carpet. That year hisses.

Dolores fractured being has been transparent, but becomes a shattered window of glass, her eyes a tragedy. Ten years of therapy tromp whatever glow she ignites on Tuesdays. Each pothole on the journey withers the poison of trust.

Middle child of middle America knuckles past legs until she is front and center. Moments when preparation is a misspelled task. A flask is bought in every state pissed in. Flasks flake dust in drawers all over the apartment. They wait to go somewhere. They go nowhere.

Sometimes Dolores smudges away days. Bottles ingest soft lips; batter with words. Woozy with the yawning edge of being is a sinking metaphor or just another particular loneliness that wraps its funk around the fibers of her sheets. She never invites anyone in.