Seminal Vestibule
I, too, found myself to be most at home there,
in this passageway between the street and … well,
let us say, the staircase and kingdom beyond
along with our Rottweiler pup Ondeen,
sprawled diagonally across the Afshar throw rug,
her belly rising and subsiding in wheezing, susurrant repose.
She might just as well have been a museum exhibit,
so nearly constant was her presence there
with me spread out on the little loveseat beside her,
stroking her ear between my fingers, teething on a stick of jerky
as was my custom in those days and sometimes even now
when circumstance and respite from society allow,
for it encourages, this chewing, deep memory to run off-leash,
sending me back once again to that antechamber
with its subaqueous lighting, yellow ochre walls and doggie smell,
the old-fashioned tilted glass apothecary jars,
three each atop the twin console tables, Mother,
poor thing, between loads of wash, baking and polishing,
forever fussing to keep them aligned just so,
filled, as they were always kept, with jelly beans and candied fruit slices,
red, green, blue, black and orange,
Poppa filled his pockets with, the fat fuck,
each time he wandered through between the one realm and t’other,
stepping over Ondeen, or not quite,
raising thus a grunt or high-pitched yelp of vivid pain.
How like a Kaiser Poppa could seem to be sometimes,
but gentle and loving, as well, pinching my cheek:
– Now, don’t be letting the world pass you by, sonny.
