Chris Bullard
—
Various Absences
My Alzheimer’s-addled mom picks up
the program for dad’s funeral and gasps,
“Dick is dead,” as though we, returned
from his rites, might not have heard.
We flip the folded sheet to its other face,
a sepia litho, palm trees and a cross,
beside the church that they attended
these forty years. Reading, she calms,
contemplating the image like a card
dealt her at bridge, thinking of the play
of tricks, until, reversing it to dad’s life
summary, she cries again “Dick is dead.”
Taking knowledge from her hands,
we unfix memory, lead her back from hell.
A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Chris Bullard is a retired judge who lives in Philadelphia. In 2022, Main Street Rag published his chapbook, Florida Man, and Moonstone Press published his chapbook, The Rainclouds of y. Finishing Line Press has accepted his chapbook, Lungs, for publication in 2024. He was nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize.
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