Thursday, December 1, 2011

Old McDonald (is dead)

I know your name isn't
"McDonald" (My mother says
all she remembers is
"John" and that your
last name was not McD)
but that's what I remember
repeating to myself as
this tiny preschool spinner
when my brother and I sat
in your garage-art-studio
in a summer of early 90s.

I remember you were
towering and you had a beard that
I would call a marker
of a bear in later years
when I would try to trace out
in sculpting emotions in clay and
found objects.

I don't remember meeting you
more than once.

The motorcycle parts that fanned out
like a chart of the
cycles of the moon over
your desk where you sat to
talk payment for
that painting of mother in
neon cups whose
eyes cut flat. The
smell of grease and
the dust thick with oil
never escaped from under my nails.

10 years later I realized "your" scent-shape
formed under my hands as
I crafted a shape of myself
in other people's throw-aways-
how long did you shape my
busy sculpting before
I thought to ask my mother
for your name? Your history?
Your life?

I wish I knew where you are buried.
I wish I could bring you
one of the little things
your scent-shape built in me.

But a child's Old Mcdonald
is dead.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

love you. love this.